


Burn the Forest for the Tree

by Aconitine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Don't Make Bets with Natasha Romanov, F/M, Let's Try to Keep From Setting the World Tree Ablaze Shall We?, Loki Has Had Enough of Your Shit, Loki's Mind is Far Afield, M/M, Mental Instability, Past Child Abuse, Past Child Death, Past Rape/Non-con, The Brother that you Love to Hate, The Gods are Not Amused, Tony Has a Not-So-Trust Fall, and Hate to Love, or Both
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:05:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aconitine/pseuds/Aconitine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He takes one last look at the tower, mapping its angles and curves, the play of lights in the windows, and the still broken name on the crest. His great and final masterpiece of mathematics and engineering, he thinks, and closes his eyes. He tries to focus on peace instead of the way his stomach is insistent on meeting his throat. They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die but his never does. Every time he's come a hair's breadth away it's just pain and fear and nothingness.</p><p>Sometimes there is no right and wrong. Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is an enemy all the same, and sometimes friends will leave you to die in the name of fate. And sometimes, whatever choice you make you lose.</p><p>[On hiatus while I finish Half-Step]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shattered Prism

“Sir, there is someone on the balcony,” Jarvis' voice cuts through the blaring metal and screaming power tools.

He kills power to them immediately, halting their orange sparks, and pulls off his safety glasses. “There's someone _where?_ ”

“The balcony sir.”

What the– “Like, the _balcony_ balcony? How the hell did they get up there!?”

“I am not aware, sir, nothing entered our airspace nor did anyone climb the tower. With the weather it is unlikely they could have managed even if they _had_ been able to avoid my notice. At the moment they are knocking on the window rather insistently.”

Tony tosses the dremel onto the work bench and stands, wiping the grease off his hands onto... oh, that was supposed to be the clean rag. Oh well.

“Sir, I recommend taking the suit considering the circumstances.”

He rolls his eyes and crosses the workshop, rather haphazardly considering the sizable number of broken-down car engines, repulsors, and supercomputer parts he'd left on the floor. “Jarvis, really? A burglar who rings the doorbell?” He jogs up the stairs and crosses the open room to the full-length glass windows. Sure enough, there's a hooded figure leaning heavily against the door, dressed all in black except for a thin strip of gold over their collar. The hand on the glass is bloody, as is the intricately decorated silver knife they clutch. The blizzard that's been buffeting the city for the past few days still rages, throwing snow across their shoulders.

“Shit, what the hell?” He unlocks the door and pulls it open. The figure wavers as the support is lost and catches themselves on the doorframe. “Um, out of curiosity and all that, who are you and how did you get onto my tower? It's not exactly consulting hours.” He forces the door closed again against the gale and turns as the figure, back toward him, throws the hood on their leather coat back to reveal windswept raven hair falling below their shoulders. They move hastily to the near wall, pull a piece of parchment from their coat, and bury the knife through it halfway to the hilt before turning on their heel and _holy shit that's Loki._

He looks pissed and has apparently gone totally batshit insane from the crazed look in his eyes. Before he can react the god rushes him, spins a one eighty, and pulls them both backwards out the window in a shatter of glass and a surge of freezing air. They fall rapidly and holy mother of– they're accelerating faster than nine point eight meters per second squared. Like way, _way_ faster. Of all the ways to die, between his drinking habits and awful life choices and Iron Man and the Avengers (not to mention all the other people he's pretty sure want him dead just for being an asshole), he's going to pull a Reichenbach and end up flat on the pavement. It's disappointing, really.

He braces himself before realizing that it's not a good idea and even if it were, he's not going to survive a fifty-plus story fall with this amount of acceleration. Instead he takes one last look at the tower, mapping its angles and curves, the play of lights in the windows, and the still broken name on the crest. His great and final masterpiece of mathematics and engineering, he thinks, and closes his eyes. He tries to focus on peace instead of the way his stomach is insistent on meeting his throat. It's a feeling he's gotten used to between flying and falling as much as he does.

They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die but his never does. Every time he's come a hair's breadth away it's just pain and fear and nothingness and maybe that should scare him but it doesn't. Not anymore. He signed his life away in Afghanistan, he could and should have died there. Sometimes he regrets he didn't considering the damage he's caused. Every day after is a tortured blessing and he's stopped caring one way or the other. It's unfortunate that his death is going to be so boring, though. He would have much preferred something flashy.

The fall seems to last a lifetime, a rainbow of light and shadow dancing behind his eyelids in slow motion even as he feels the speed of their descent. Then he remembers he's not alone as Loki tightens his grip and his eyes blink open just as a flash of blinding green light envelops them.


	2. *

Before, in the cold night air, buffeted by snow? That wasn't falling. Not really.

_This_  is falling.


	3. Blood in the Snow

So much downward momentum _should_ have killed them upon landing. Only, it doesn't. Knocks the breath out of him, sure, but Loki took most of the impact and the rest of their velocity is spent tumbling sideways after the fact.

Okay, no, actually it does hurt a lot and maybe it's a good idea to just lie here for a while because oh hey, that's blood and he didn't even know he _had_ those muscles so how the hell do they hurt so bad?

There's a scuffling sound behind him. He should probably – ow, okay, not moving that way – worry about that. Sitting up, can he do sitting up? Yeah, okay, so good so far (or is that the wrong way round?) – nope, nope, abort mission, that leg doesn't want to move that way. Maybe if he turns a bit? Yeah, that's a little better. Iron Man never seemed to hurt this bad and he – ow – had fought with crazy villains and gods and crazy-villain-gods, oh hey, speaking of which –

He gets a little lightheaded and has to pause, leaning back on his elbows for support.

Said crazy-villain-god comes into his peripheral and he blinks, trying to make the ground stop tilting because he's not drunk off his ass right now, it should really stop that please and thank you. Why is Loki bent over ow ow ow –

The god says something in another language that sounds vulgar and probably is, and the (three?) of him straighten up slowly. He himself goes back to trying to just sit up, and it's a little better this time, but things are still a bit off-kilter.

“Hand,” Loki wheezes and reaches out to him.

He pulls back and tries to glare but it turns into a twisted frown because glaring is _hard_ when you can't focus quite right. It takes a minute to get his mouth functioning. “I'm not donating pieces to whatever world-ending spell you're trying to cast, shove off.” Good to know that the sass was relatively unaffected.

“Ó fyrir kærleika – just give me your hand you insolent mortal fool.”

It sounds like exasperation. Maybe? Oh, things are getting a little clearer, not quite so much half-drunk half-hangover-ish. That's nice. Loki seems kind of impatient so he reaches a hand out. The god uses it to pull him to his feet. That's unexpected and oh hey, the spinning's back!

“Stark. Look at me.”

Haha, Loki's all bendy and it feels like he's been on a merry-go-round for too long. Or actually like that one time he was trying to restart the helicarrier engine and Cap was kind'a slow on pulling the lever. Only that time he didn't end up feeling drugged. Did Loki drug him?

“No, I didn't you idiot,” the god sighs.

He thinks he manages a confused look. He was going for concerned but that works too. “Don't read my mind you creep!”

“Þú hefur got til vera grínast. I'm _not,_ you've been running your mouth you dim-witted moron. Look me in the eyes and focus on your breathing. It will help.”

Eye fly apple pie stick a needle in my –

 _“Stark.”_ The god grips his jaw painfully and forces him to look at him. “Stop babbling nonsense like a newly weaned tot and focus on me.” He realizes Loki's still half-supporting him. That's kind of awkward. He steadies himself a bit and manages to almost focus on the burning viridian gaze but it's kind of giving him a headache. Oh, right, breathe. That helps a bit. The ground slowly steadies itself and the ringing in his ears quiets to nothing.

“Better?” The god lets go carefully, watching to make sure he doesn't fall again.

Arms legs neck head nose sweet, everything's there. “What the actual fuck was that?” Things are still a little fuzzy but it's bearable now.

Loki steps back, the darkness (oh hey, it's dark how did he not notice that before) wrapping around him like a cloak. “I forgot it would have such an effect on those unused to it.”

“Unused to _what_ you psycho bastard?”

The god flinches slightly. “It would take too long to explain. Or perhaps not, but it is unimportant for the time being. Come.”

Oh no, he's not having any of that. “Come _where?_ I'm not just blindly following a lunatic murderer around god knows where after he pulls me out a window and then probably drugged me.” It's cold out here, wherever here is, _really_ cold. It feels like he's been dunked in liquid nitrogen. Well, minus the brittle bit. He hopes.

“Nowhere, everywhere, the places in between... that's irrelevant. You fail to ask important questions and as such should not be surprised at receiving useless answers.” Without another word, Loki stalks off into the deep shadow and nearly disappears from sight as his dark hair and leathers melt into the inky black.

He chases after, because wherever the hell they are Loki's the only way out and he's sure not getting left behind in what are probably subzero temperatures. “Wait up!”

Loki pauses and turns, barely more than two virescent drops against a licorice canvas. “Focus less on the cold and it will fall away.” His voice matches the picture, really. Low and dark.

He does his best to listen, but honestly it's kind of hard considering cold's the only thing he feels. Around them a somber forest grows, trees and vines more like an artist's haphazard brushstrokes than any sort of woods he knows. Black on black against a starless sky, 'til even the drifts of snow beneath them are dark. He'd say it was something out of a nightmare except for the lack of screaming red-eyed demons. The silence is deafening, actually, the only sound the crunch of his boots as the thin layer of ice breaks and his feet sink into the snow. Loki's steps are soundless altogether.

He shivers and the god glances sideways at him. “Your mental control is lacking, I see.” He keeps watching for a moment, expressionless, then twists a hand in the air and conjures a fur-lined mantle with a grimace.

He takes the proffered cloak gratefully and pulls it around his shoulders, immediately feeling quite a bit warmer.

“If you equate ice and darkness with frigid temperatures, then that is what you will feel. On the contrary, your associations between fur and warmth mean you perceive just that. The furs themselves are not necessary, only your expectations.” The god offers no further explanation than that, and continues through the snarled forest. Loki's breath whispers without fog against the cold, unlike his own. He's reminded of the first time he saw snow as a child, probably seven or eight since that was when they'd first moved to New York from Florida, and the way his breath in the winter air had fascinated him. He knew, of course, the scientific reasoning behind it, that it was the water in the air condensing as it met his warm breath, but it was still magical in a way. As magical as anything has ever been to him, which isn't saying much. He'd spent his childhood building, making, studying (he didn't even know what Disney _was_ until he was sent to boarding school). He's never been disillusioned because he never believed in the first place.

For a while he thinks it's the fog that's so heavy, but maybe it's just the silence that hangs over them. Thick, tangible, palpable. Loki seems resigned to it, his eyes downcast as he trudges on ahead. A bit of wind picks up, biting at his nose and cheeks and whistling through the trees, but the noise quickly subsides and the blanket of quiet falls again. The wind continues, building steadily.

“You do know where we're _going,_ right?”

Loki doesn't turn, pressing on against the gale and shielding him a bit with his body. “Of course. There is nowhere I know better than this place. Though, I suppose,” he raises an arm in front of his face as the wind kicks up brittle snow into his eyes, “the paths have changed greatly from when last I traveled them. This was once my safe haven and refuge but time has not been kind.” He chuckles but there's a tinge of madness in it, and despair. “Now it's little more than a web of lies rent in two by the sharp blade of truth. These woods are not safe, there are demons haunting every tree and it would be wise not to stray far. This is the kill box, Stark, the darkness is but the shadow of he who most wants us dead.”

He stays closer to the god after that, glancing over his shoulder regularly. “You really suck at reassurance.”

“Sugarcoating matters is of no aid here. Would you appreciate your Captain telling you that you are going to see a man selling pastries only to find a battalion of fully-armed warriors? It is better that you are on your guard.”

“And you brought me here because...” He stumbles over a sharp rock and his still-aching muscles nearly give out.

Loki steadies him with a hand on his shoulder and an uneasy look. “There is a Chitauri fleet only miles from Midga– Earth. They are unhappy that you, but a lone mortal, turned one of their strongest colonies to naught but ash and dust on Yggdrasill's wind. They will send only scouts at first, few enough for your shield-brothers to fend off. If they were to discover you, however, the entire fleet would descend and raze miles to the ground in their revenge.”

He pauses and glares. “Sorry, but I have kind of a hard time believing _you_ decided to save me and/or the Earth. Not least because you're supposed to be _imprisoned on Asgard._ With your magic bound.”

“Keep moving, it is not wise to stay in one place for long.” He doesn't continue until he complies. “I am. And for the most part it is. I managed to gather just enough power through the restraints to manifest a projection outside your tower, which, not to be immodest, you would be impressed by did you know the conditions. I'm aware you have no reason to trust me, and I do not expect you to, but I have more reason than you would like to think to ensure your safety. You yet have a part to play in events to come.”

“Wonderful. And you know this how?”

Loki breathes a quiet laugh. “What most perceive to be only winds through Yggdrasill's branches are more than they know. I hear her whisper, secrets of old and that yet to come. I do not know what your role will be, only that you must live if I am to have a chance.”

“Good to know you haven't suddenly gone soft or anything. I think that would be scarier than when you tried to kill me. Multiple times,” he glares.

“That all depends on your vantage p–“ He freezes, eyes wide in fear. “They're coming. Do you know how to wield a sword?”

He turns and looks behind him to see red eyes blinking in the shadows. “Not really, no.”

“Close your eyes.”

_“What?”_

Loki snarls, green light dancing between his fingers and spiraling up his forearms. _“Close your eyes,”_ he insists. “Imagine your suit. Every detail, not just the superficial ones. The weight of it, how it feels to fly, the push of the thrusters and the recoil of a shot. The little things only you notice when you wear it, that nobody else knows. Don't just remember, _feel it.”_

It's not like he really has a better option, so he does. He thinks of the way his clothes bunch uncomfortably when he forgets the undersuit, the blue of the HUD switching to red as he preps for a battle, the sound of gears and metal and the taste of metal and coconut when the arc reactor brings the suit to life. The sound of Jarvis in his ear, the clang of gold-titanium alloy as it hits pavement and the way the sound reverberates in his skull. The way his stomach drops when he cuts power to the thrusters and the whine of the repulsors as they recharge. He remembers how each piece of armor assembles around him, the times when he gets to use one of the suits from his workshop and not the mobile ones in the helicarrier or that he carries in the car. The sound Jarvis makes as he comes online and runs diagnostics.

“Stark,” Loki calls, “I'm glad you're reminiscing, but I'd much appreciate it if you fought now!” There's a woosh and he opens his eyes just in time to see a tendril of green flame wrap around a giant blue creature. And holy shit that's the HUD he's looking through. What the actual fuck?

A crunch behind him and he spins, facing a lithe creature with huge _(huge)_ fangs and it pounces, claws bared. He somersaults under it, spinning to send a repulsor blast its way just as Loki brings another creature to the ground with a well-aimed throwing knife. He moves with the grace of a dancer as he fights but the terror in his eyes betrays the otherwise perfect portrait of calm. He hears a roar and leaps into the air just in time to avoid the monster again. Unfortunately he flies directly into the talons of some great bird strong enough to seriously dent the chest piece. Diverting power to the thrusters he manages to throw its balance and twists in its grip to aim a blast at its eyes. It careens to the ground and he tumbles from its grip. The other creature's back again and he doesn't see it in time, it rends deep gashes in the back of his armor as if it were maid from aluminum foil and he can feel its claws graze his skin. Shit. What the hell are these things?

He ducks and turns to parry a– is that a freakin' _snake?_ It dents his right gauntlet and holy shit these things are strong. His armor's never taken a beating this bad before.

Jarvis' crisp voice breaks over the din. “Sir, the combined damage has destroyed the connection from the arc reactor to the thrusters as well as three of the back stabilizers. Flight capabilities are no longer functional.”

Fuck.

The snake lunges again and he sidesteps but only just barely. He lands another hit on the first creature but it gets a fang through the already damaged gauntlet and it burns as though it were covered in some sort of venom. A repulsor blast from the other hand sends it recoiling with a whimper but the damage has already been done.

“Left repulsor now offline,” Jarvis informs him. “Might I suggest retreating, sir?”

“Where the hell do I run, Jarvis?”

Loki leaps with a feral snarl and jams a long blade down between the thing's eyes and shouts to him. “The more scared you are, the more power they gain over you!” He shrinks back and stares over his shoulder. “Behind you!”

He strafes left as the snow where he just stood flies outward with a crack of lightening and he turns to see... _“Thor!?”_

“It's not Thor!” Loki cries and lets another knife fly. It barely scratches the god, who growls and steps toward the younger. His eyes blaze red and his smile is ruthless.

Loki stumbles backward, tripping over the beast he's just slayed. “Brother, stop, please. I did the best I could, I meant only to–“

The not-Thor bares his teeth, eyes cold and cruel. “You are nothing, _brother,”_ he spits the last word in disgust, “a disgrace to the House of Odin, a monster in blood and action. It's no wonder that you were so hated.”

The snake almost hits him again but he jumps back and its fangs close over air. He takes a running leaps and grabs it behind its head, aiming a repulsor blast between its eyes. It collapses to the ground, dead.

“Mother only took you in out of pity you abhorrent creature.” Thor steps forward menacingly and raises Mjolnir. “Argr. Sansorðinn. Seiðskratti. I should kill you as you stand, for your crimes, but a monster like you does not deserve such a mercy. Whatever shall we do, _brother of mine,_ what would be fair recompense? Perhaps I should cast you back to the ice from whence you came. Father should have left you to die there as a babe, you know, your own father did. Not even a monster of your own _race_ could bear your horrid features.”

“You are but words,” Loki shouts desperately, “naught but words...”

“Ah, but you and I both know I speak the truth, as you never have. Runt. Useless, ergi creature. I would call you the god of lies but you and I both know you are no god. “

Tony manages to get his one remaining repulsor to work again and aims for not-Thor's head where it's not covered by his helmet. Right at his mouth, actually.

“You are the fiend parents warn their children of at ni–“ not-Thor is cut off and reels backwards before turning to face him. “You dare to touch a son of Odin? I will strike you down whence you stand and feed you as carrion to the raptors!”  
The god (not-god?) throws Mjolnir and he is his square in the chest, the metal buckling further and making it difficult to breathe. He scrambles to his feet and runs forward only to have the hammer brought down upon his shoulder. The power is even greater than the throw and he can feel his left shoulder as it's dislocated beneath the crushing armor. He swears a blue streak and braces himself for the lightning strike the not-Thor not-god calls down.

True to form, the suit absorbs the electricity. Four hundred and sixty five percent capacity.

“Jarvis! Reroute excess power to chest RT!”

The thing is, not-Thor still fights like Thor. Which means he leaves the same spot behind him open when he spins. They've sparred enough for him to learn how to duck under it and side-step behind him.

“Power rerouted. Engage?”

“Yes you useless piece of code, Engage!” he calls, “Engage!”

A blast of blue and white light burst from the arc reactor, hitting not-Thor square in the weakest point of his armor. He stumbles forward and he jumps him, one knee on his shoulder and the other leg braced on his back. When an arm swings back to grab him he pulls and twists with his good arm. There's a sickening crack that makes him wince, and the not-god falls to the ground, head bent at an unnatural angle. He himself collapses beside him in a mangled mess of red and gold as Jarvis' voice distorts and his HUD flickers out. Only a small window of light through the lenses remains, so he tries to steady his breathing and regain enough composure to sit up.

He sees a shock of black against the blue-grey snow around him.

“Stark.” The voice is shaky and muted as it filters through the metal, but the god runs his fingers along the seam in the helmet and finds the manual release. The faceplate falls away and his field of vision improves tenfold.

“Chest piece. Bottom seam. Both sides. Pull out and twist, then push diagonally down.” The god follows his instructions and he draws a labored breath, relishing the blessing of full lung capacity. Loki finds a few more releases on his own, enough for him to sit up, and he pulls the rest and strips the armor away piece by piece. “Thanks.”

“It is not you who should be thankful.” He notices the way his arm hangs and reaches hesitantly toward it. “You're hurt.”

He pulls himself to his feet. “It's just dislocated. Not the first time and probably not the last.” He pops it back into place with a sharp intake of breath, then looks around at the carnage. “Damn.”

The once pure snow is crushed with footprints and melted through to the ground where he'd first taken off. Rivers of crimson and grey (grey?) wind away from burned and mutilated bodies, and twist into runes around not-Thor's (but he hadn't even bled, so how?), pooling in the center of what they've beaten into a clearing. Both he and Loki are breathing hard, hands stained claret and sporting some impressive bruises.

“What. The fuck. You weren't kidding when you said we should keep moving.”

Loki gives him a tired half-smile. “I told you so.”

“Okay, stop being an asshole before you start. Just out of, you know, curiosity,” the god cringes and he probably knows what he thinks he's going to ask but he's totally not going down the demon-Thor road right now. That was way too freaky and Loki's reaction to it was just outright scary. “How the hell did my suit just... appear? Because that was bizarre, which coming from me is saying something.”

The god relaxes slightly and starts walking again. He follows. “Here, what you imagine manifests. As I said earlier, if you expect cold then you will feel cold. You can't change what already exists too much, but minor things you can influence. Your suit, for instance.”

He turns with a pout. “Did you just call my suit minor? Do you have any idea the engineering genius that created that? How many tiny pieces fit together into that magnificent whole?”

“Don't get your ego all in a twist,” Loki rolls his eyes, “You know what I mean. Minor as in small. Not changing the entire environment to suit your whim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, if you're running this through a translator, the insults (argr, sansorðinn, seiðskratti) are going to come out a hair differently than they mean in their Old Norse context.


	4. Glitch

“How the hell does that even work?” Yeah, he's asking a lot of questions today, but he's Tony Stark. When doesn't he ask questions? It's his job to ask every imaginable question and then some.

Loki glances up at him, still looking a bit shaken but he's pulled it together remarkably fast. “Because this is not one of the nine realms. It exists outside them, independent. That is why the Other and the Chitauri cannot find you here. Only _He_ could, but he rarely looks this far out. We will not need fear him too much until we get closer.”

“Closer to where?”

“Some of the haven yet exists, enough to provide sanctuary for a time. _He_ is blind to its existence but keeps a firm hold on the area surrounding it. The furthest depths of this place besides it. Things will only grow more perilous from here.”

He gapes. _“More perilous?_ Like somehow facing down five fucking demon spawn isn't bad enough?”

“Had I not seen it with my own eyes I would not believe you to be the man who would take on an entire Chitauri fleet. You disappoint.”

“Uh, yeah, excuse me,” he raises an eyebrow in consternation, “those things tore through my armor like it was fabric. _Nothing_ is that strong.”

Loki's expression falls back into the same darkness as the progressively denser forest. “You will be surprised, then. As I said, it only gets worse. Envision your armor stronger next time, at least you were wearing some – I am in naught but leathers.”

He falls quiet, trying not to freak out too much. Iron Man doesn't freak out. It's bad for reputation.

The foliage seems to echo his emotions, vines choking out whatever dull grey light filtered from the sky and the trees feeling more menacing than ever. The snow is deeper, colder (only colder because he thinks it is, think of Malibu), and even Loki is sinking into it. He swears he sees scarlet eyes gleaming through the brush and glances around almost obsessively.

Loki brushes a hand over his shoulder. “The more you expect them the more quickly they will come. Hold your calm.”

“Easy for you to say,” he scowls.

The god looks to him impassively, deep emerald eyes placid against the endless darkness. “Whose monsters do you think those were?”

He doesn't really have a good answer for that, it's probably not the best time to pull out the snark. This Loki is a bit different from subjugate-the-Earth Loki but he doesn't really want to risk increasing his odds of a painful death. Judging from the gleam in his eyes when he stood over them all, the god probably knows more torture methods than he's had the misfortune to experience himself.

Bad train of thought, right. Not thinking about his shitty past. Thinking about... rainbows and butterflies and unicorns. Right? Isn't that what happy thoughts are made of? Well, that or copious amounts of scotch. Same thing, really, down enough alcohol and soon enough you're practically _made_ of sunshine and daisies. Until the hangover, that is, but if you just keep drinking through morning you can kind of hold it off. Granted, afterwards is a total bitch but it's usually worth it.

Calm, calm, how do you do calm? His mind moves at about a lightyear a minute, it's not exactly easy to slow that momentum. Rainbows [(sinϴ sub1 / sinϴ sub2) = (v sub1 / v sub2)] and sunshine [EoT = 720 x (C – nint (C))] and the multiplicative constant of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy...

“Calm, Stark, does not usually entail extended internal monologues.”

“S sub BH equals A over four,” he mumbles, only realizing after the fact that he's said it aloud. “Huh?”

Loki sends him a withering look. “Much as I am curious to see how your string of mathematical equations would manifest themselves, perhaps now is not the best time to find out? The goal is to let go of thought, not hoard it like a dragon does gold.”

“My thoughts don't really turn off, sorry. Genius and all. Batteries not included, racing thoughts are.”

The god sighs. “You assume I do not know the feeling? That is the reason you and I must both quiet our minds lest those things manifest. Your eyes speak more than you realize of your past, and you cannot fall into that downward spiral. What is the last good, untainted memory you can pull to the surface?”

“Uh...” He thinks back, before the Avengers and Fury's constant harassment. The last time he and Pepper kissed, before Coulson had to come and drag him into SHIELD's problems. No, that wasn't entirely happy. It was barely the beginning of their relationship and days from the end of it. He'd known from the start that it wouldn't last, he was too dependent on her already and it was going to turn unhealthy sooner rather than later, but the battle had torn it to shreds for both of them. Not that, then.

Before that was just a lot of time in the labs and workshops, not particularly happy or sad. A bit too much time for introspection, though. That tended to end with a few smashed bottles and a killer hangover.

The first time he'd flown the Mk. 2? No, it was too close on the heels of his escape. And only days before... well. So much for family.

And before that it was a blur of alcohol and parties and girls he didn't really care about but took home anyway.

Holy crap his life was shit. He needs to get on that, pronto.

Loki reads the direction of his thoughts from his silence and his smooth voice cuts through his retrospection. “Our similarities in character are frightening. The goal is to banish the fears and regrets of your past, not bring them to the forefront you realize,” he glances behind them warily, “Find something else, then. A color, perhaps, or conjure something benign. A field, sunset, ocean... somewhere calm and safe. A texture, smell, sound. Think of it so completely that it eradicates any mental chatter.”

He looks up, amused. “What is this, guided meditation 101? What's next, guided breathing?”

“If you think it will help. Stop talking, start focusing.”

It's hard to choose something. This sort of thing isn't really his forte, more Bruce's. He glances around, trying to find something to draw from, but it's bleak (except those are definitely red eyes now and they're getting closer, _shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck)._ “What do you think of?”

“Nothing, anymore. I've had centuries of practice and I can slip into nothingness relatively easily. When I was younger, when I first started, I used the feeling of a new book. The comforting smell of paper and ink, the leather of the cover, the way you have to slowly loosen the binding to avoid breaking it. The slight roughness of the paper and the sound of rustling pages. Old books were good, too. Decades, centuries, millenia of history and character, passed from owner to owner, rebound and restored as the pages wore down to little more than threads over time... Slowly you can sink from that to complete calm, separate from the world and the pain in your history.”

As Loki talks he can feel some of the tension ease away. He hasn't held a book in years, not since he perfected his computer systems, and even before then he was hacking together smartphones while the rest of the world was just discovering flip-phones. Books were neutral territory. Who'da thunk. He says so aloud, and Loki smiles softly.

“You are missing out, Stark. No amount of technological prowess can match the feel of a book in your hands. Something about the physicality of it. Hone in on that if it helps, though I feel that could be considered cheating, seeing as you stole it from me.”

“It's not stealing, you weren't using it,” he shoots back, but turns his thoughts to the books Loki described. The way pages flipped under his fingers, dust jackets that were always getting crushed under spare engine parts, pages torn out and pinned to his dorm wall, covered in highlighter and inked annotations. Schematics, blueprints, lists of equations forming shapes and angles in his mind. Connections mapped in grey thread under red pins that nobody else ever understood. His own set of constellations, unseen by the rest of the world because they were just too damn _slow._

Once one of his roommate's friends had decided to copy down some of his personal work for a class project. The professor, impressed by the sudden prowess in mathematics, had asked him to explain and the kid had spent exactly a minute and fifteen seconds floundering and BS'ing their way before he stood and walked to the front of the room, turned over the chalkboard, and proceeded at fifteen years old to show up a senior in artificial intelligence algorithms. He also lost the rest of the class within two minutes and the professor four. Plus the cheating bastard was thrown out of the class and placed on academic probation for plagiarism.

Of course, it also painted a target on his back as the school freak and he found himself at the center of Frat hazing and being thrown into dumpsters. His name apparently didn't exclude him from pathetic, stereotypical bullying. You'd think they could at least be _imaginative_ about it... When he'd graduated summa cum laude three years later with a doctorate, he'd gotten the last laugh.

Loki glances over at him and smacks him in the head. “Your mind is drifting again. You are truly awful at this. Must I force feed you everything?”

He grins sheepishly. “Sorry? It's not like I'm the poster child for good mental health. My mind likes to wander. A lot.”

“I'm beginning to wonder if it was even worth saving you. Surely you cannot be _that_ much of an asset.” He huffs. “Fine. Can you at least quiet your mind, if not silence it, if I remain talking?”

“Uh, maybe?”

The god rolls his eyes and crosses his arms in front of him, bracing himself against the growing (yet still somehow silent) gusts. A deep gash opens in the path ahead and they pause.

“It is worse than I feared. Come, we will have to go around.”

He glances into the woods at the pairs of glinting red. “Are you sure? I can't just, like, imagine another suit and just fly us over?”

“You do not wish to draw attention to yourself. So long as you do not fear the creatures lurking in the darkness they cannot harm you. Your demons take far more time to manifest, anyway, which is why we've not yet been attacked by any considering your fixation on them. I should be able to fend off these.”

He draws the cloak around himself tightly, measuring his breaths, and follows.

Loki speaks softly, and he's not sure if it's meant to calm him or the god.

_“Sumir segja að heimurinn muni enda í eldi;_  
 _Sumir segja í ís._  
 _Frá því sem ég hef smakkað af þrá,_  
 _Ég held að með þá sem greiða eldinn_

_En ef ég þurfti að týnast tvisvar,_  
 _Ég held að ég veit nóg um hatur_  
 _að segja að fyrir ís eyðileggingu_  
 _er einnig mikill og myndi nægja.”_

The chasm grows narrow enough for them to jump across, and they do, heading back to their original path where the gnarled brush is just slightly thinner.

“What were you saying? Sounded like a poem or something.”

Loki smirks. “Robert Frost. In my native tongue, obviously.”

“Seriously? You not only memorized an Earth poem, but translated it and memorized that too? And they called _me_ a ner–“ He cuts off as the world freezes, Loki with it, and there's a rumbling tremor. Everything, well, glitches is the best word he can find. And it's pretty accurate, really, as everything splits into haphazard blocks of color in that weird but somehow logical pattern of a full-screen graphics glitch and everything flickers in time with the shaking of... well, what was the ground, but he looks down and it's just pixellated blocks of light as far as he can see.


	5. Mind's Eyes

What the fuck.

What just happened.

What. The actual. Fuck.

All of a sudden the landscape reconstitutes itself and Loki shimmers back in with a green flicker, gasping like a fish out of water.

“What the _hell_ was that!?”

Loki doubles over, wide-eyed, and coughs up blood.

“Shit, man!”

The god grimaces and wipes the blood from his lips, but only really succeeds in smearing it further. “It is difficult to maintain this place given my current condition. You will not be affected too much, your energy signature is self-sustaining, but the rest of the form slipped a bit from my grasp.”

“Yeah, okay, I'm starting to think I deserve a little explanation here, care to share?”

Loki pushes him forward. “Keep moving,” he hisses and looks behind them. “Try to calm yourself, those are yours.”

He hazards a look behind them and sees electric blue glowing menacingly in the shadows. They blink, not in synchronization but as individuals and Loki hurries him along.

“Calm, Stark, they can't fully form unless you feed them,” he reassures, voice shaky but assured.

He tries to follow his instructions but things glitch again and when he peers over his shoulder pairs of cyan blocks remain where the eyes had been, winking between colors but always returning to that white-blue. Breathe, Loki'd said. Think books and rainbows.

When things flicker back to some semblance of normalcy again he's a little more composed, but not much.

“What the hell sort of world is this?” he demands.

Loki sets his gaze to somewhere in the distance before replying. “This is no world, not in the traditional sense. Not a realm nor any fruit of Yggdrasill, and neither is it anything Between. Your kind has a saying, that it's all in your head?”

“Wait a sec,” he stops him, “you're saying I'm _dreaming_ all this? Because this is one fucked-up dream.”

“Not exactly... It's not a dream, not really. And it's not your mind we're traveling.”

He starts. “So you mean...?”

“Mine,” Loki nods. “Translated into a less abstract form that we might travel it. Mindwalking, it's called, and it was once a widely practiced art between apprentices and their masters, a good way to share information, but it's fallen out of use as the old ways of magic have gone extinct. That's why the chitauri can't find you here, it's beyond their sight. Well, partially why anyway.”

“And the other part?”

“I'm getting there,” the god scolds and glares at him. “Be patient. The other part is why I had to pull you out a window. That version of me you saw was only a weak projection, it had no power of its own. I had to transfer you here entirely, not just your mind but your body as well or they would just kill you and leave your mind stranded here without realizing it. At the basest level magic is a sister of energy, the two can be converted to one another. The momentum combined with the already present magic from the illusion was enough to... I'm not sure how best to describe it to you, as you are unfamiliar with the magical terms. Convert your body to energy, I guess, though that's a bit simplified. This,” he gestures at himself, “is but another projection.”

He raises an eyebrow. “So a mind inside a mind?”

“Sort of, yes and no. I told you it was complicated. That's beside the point though. The fact that we walk a mind rather than a realm is the reason that they,” he sweeps an arm out toward the red lights forming constellations around them, “exist as they do. They're fears, memories, anger brought to life. Focus less and they turn to naught but mist, but concentrate too hard and they become as strong as we create them to be. My mind, thus my demons already exist here in greater strength. Yours have to form from your own mind before they can manifest, the same way you created your suit.”

He takes time to look around them again, at the dense black trees being strangled by thorned vines, ribbons of deep red traced through the snow, the empty sky and especially those eyes, the soul-piercing stares of a thousand demons.

“Dude. No offense but your mind is really fucked up.”

Loki laughs tiredly. “Thank you for your insightful wisdom. Have you anything else to say of which I am already more than aware?”

“Uh, you said it gets worse? How worse are we talking here because this is shitty enough already, thanks.”

The god pauses but only just, then continues on, leaving a path through the snow for him to follow more easily than breaking his own. “This, here, is the outskirts. Conscious thoughts more easily controlled. There are–“ he hesitates until he's prompted to continue, “There are worse things there. Scars that run far deeper. And _Him._ ” At that he breaks down into maddened giggles and it's more than a little disconcerting. The predatory eyes grow larger, closer.

“Loki? What was it you were saying about staying calm? Might be a good time to put that to use now...” Celadon eyes flick up to him, close with a tremor, and reopen cool as the evening tide. “Do I want to know what the hell that was about?”

“You'll find out soon enough,” is the dark reply. “We near the edge of his domain.” A grating birdcall screams overhead and a great shadow falls over them temporarily.

He jumps, already on edge, and the sound is like nails on a chalkboard to his already fraying nerves. To be honest, he's kind of missing the chitauri battle right about now. Like really, really bad.

“Not a threat,” the god informs him, “Munnin, one of Odin's ravens. He is outside, just a projection of a presence here. That, on the other hand,” he stops short and pulls him to a halt as well, “is.”

He doesn't see anything and tells the god as much.

“Right.” Loki snaps his fingers and the first two glow green. He reaches out and presses them to his temple, and suddenly blue and white lines trace over the landscape like the marks that still remain around his arc reactor from the palladium poisoning. A high-tech crossword, Rhodey had called it. _“His_ reach,” the god explains. “Whatever you do, don't touch the threads of his power. They will grow denser as we go.”

He tracks the nearest few back into darkness even more complete, if that's even possible. “What happens if I do?”

A half-crazed laugh. “Then we both die the slowest, most painful death you can imagine. If we're lucky.” He moves between the closest two, stepping gingerly over the place where they cross. “So do try to be careful.”

“Uh, yeah, wonderful pep talk. Care to freak me out any more?”

Loki turns then freezes, staring at something over his shoulder. “Take two steps back and don't turn around. Next time, don't just feign calmness, try to actually have control. Now would be a very good time to gather your suit.” The glowing emerald of his magic swirls outward around his hands, branching up his arms in what he's having a hard time deciding is more like veins or a tree.

Now's probably not the best time to be contemplating that. Shit.

He leans his head back, eyes closed (not that it's really that much brighter with them open) and feels the suit gathering around him, each piece snapping and screwing into place. It's easier this time when he knows what he's doing, and the blue of his HUD flips to red almost immediately.

When he turns his heart almost stops, and honestly it's probably thanks to the arc reactor that it doesn't. It's not monsters that he faces, not literally like Loki's. This is worse, in his personal opinion. His own versions of demon-Thor.

Howard, Obie, Raza from the Ten Rings. Eyes a brighter cyan than any of his displays at home can render, each with a Topol-white grin that shakes him to the core. He fires up a repulsor but Obie strides forward fearlessly.

“Tony, Tony, Tony, now what are we going to do with you? The golden goose, all out of eggs. It's a pity you didn't die like I hired the Ten Rings to take care of. Useless bastards, all of them. That's fine, maybe I'll just tear out your arc reactor again. It's not like you can find a spare in this wasteland, right? Have fun in cardiac arrest while I take over your company.” He's nonchalant as ever and it sends him over the edge.

“I killed you once,” he growls and leaps into the air, using a well-timed repulsor blast to turn a flip over the traitorous asshole's head. “And I'll kill you again you backstabbing, sorry excuse for a godfather.” With a spin he hits the man in the back with a repulsor blast but while he stumbles, cursing, Howard and Raza turn. Loki's busy tying Obie up with green tendrils and doesn't stop them.

“I can't believe you, Tony! How the hell could my son turn out to be such an idiotic fool?” It's only now he notices the bottle of whiskey in his father's hand as he gestures wildly at him. Fuck shit mother of– “You're a useless brat, and I'm glad I'm rid of you.”

“Yes...” Raza purrs, slinking forward, “Did you honestly believe you could outrun us so easily? We are not the only branch of the Ten Rings, you know. And we are but a tiny piece of a greater plan. There is a far greater force behind us that you will never be rid of.”

“How does it feel to be destroyed by your own weapon, _son,”_ Howard spits, “I wouldn't have ever been so careless. You were only ever a shadow of my greatness, a failure of a legacy.”

Raza tilts his head and circles him. He starts feeling like prey being circled by a hawk, or whatever birds do that. Not really one of the things he paid attention to in school. “You do know you were only ever a mistake, do you not? An accident. Never wanted, you remember? He spent all his time searching for his beloved Captain.”

“I would have given you up in a heartbeat if it meant having Steve back!” Howard throws the half-empty bottle with deadly accuracy and he barely turns in time to avoid being hit square in the face.

A white-hot burst of magic cuts through Howards chest and he arches back, the scream choked.

“Stark!” Loki's voice cuts through Raza's continued monologue, “Your mind is getting trapped in a loop, I can't fight off the entire bloody team of Avengers by myself!”

Sure enough, Steve and Romanov are poised for an attack behind him and he barely ducks in time to avoid Natasha's widow's bite arcing over where his collarbone was just seconds prior. Fuck.

He dodges another attack from the spy and launches himself at Steve, stopped abruptly by his shield and is thrown backwards by the recoil. Natasha's fucking stiletto comes down towards his leg out of nowhere and pierces the armor, burying itself into his thigh, and he shouts in pain even as he fires the thrusters and gets the hell out of her range. When he pulls the blade from his leg Loki's dance-fight with Raza takes him directly in front of him and he plucks the bloody knife from his hand for his own use. Just as well, because the god's a hell of a lot more lethal with it than he ever could be. That hit to Raza's arm looks like it's going to leave more than a scratch. Loki only holds his attention momentarily before he's being thrown backwards by Captain Fucking America's shield and into the trees where the red eyes still glint menacingly.

He recovers, but vibranium is apparently stronger than imaginary titanium alloy because his right hip is dented and the deformed armor restricts that leg's movement to about thirty degrees in either direction. He's okay as long as he's flying forwards, his knee can still bend back, but if he has to stop or change directions suddenly it's going to be a huge problem.

Loki's still locked in step with Raza who is ten times faster and more martial-arts inclined than he remembers, and the Widow's already launched herself at his legs. He kicks up and over, landing in a painful half kneeling crouch before shoving himself up and blocking a punch from the Captain.

“You're nothing but a selfish bastard,” Steve snarls as their arms lock, “It's no wonder your dad liked me best.”

He shoves and ducks another punch, instead going for his legs. He manages to get a good hit in to his shins but the shield comes flying out of nowhere and knocks him head over heels, pushing the already broken leg armor into an even more painful position.

He rolls with it the best that he can and uses his good leg to push into the air and fire the thrusters once before landing hard onto Steve's back. The super soldier collapses into a star spangled heap and a repulsor blast to the head leaves the light bleeding from his eyes.

Before he can stand Loki backflips over him, snarls like a wild animal, and leaps forward again to tackle the Black Widow. He can't see Raza until it's too late, the bullet ricocheting off his armor and hitting Loki just to the left of his spine. The god crumples to the ground.

After that it's a blur of cyan versus his red and gold, each repulsor blast matching the blue of their eyes. His armor gives him a slight advantage in most respects, but his right leg is next to useless and apparently he didn't do a great job remembering the missiles and lasers when he created this version of the armor. Between the Widow's speed and Raza's iron will they have him backed against a tree in a matter of minutes and Raza manages to get a shot through a dented piece of his armor. The bullet hurts like hell as it tears through his side but thankfully it doesn't hit anything vital. He fights through the pain, adrenaline flooding his system now more than ever, and finally manages to bring them both down. As Natasha falls to the ground, her hair black and ragged at the ends where a missed blast razed it and blood staining the snow from a compound fracture, he blacks out.


	6. Dancing with Death

When he slowly comes to he's met with a web of celeste blue etching its way over and through the forest, a latticework of aqua glow airbrushed over the trees. It takes him a few minutes to realize he's even moving – his head is killing him and he feels nauseous. It's like every time he's knocked out it feels worse coming to. Which, all things considered makes sense, and his brain can probably only take so many concussions before it gives out even with the unexpected aid of the arc reactor. That was a nice bonus, when he'd found out that its integration into his body had shortened his recovery time and gave him a bit more stamina. But even so, he feels like shit.

When the world starts feeling less like an awful light show at a rave he realizes he's moving, which is a little disconcerting because that's a new one. Blinking a few times to clear his vision he tilts his head back and meets familiar mint green eyes.

“Welcome back,” Loki murmurs under his breath. “Don't be too loud, it's best not to draw _His_ attention here.”

He shifts in the god's arms, testing the movement of his leg. It's not too bad, but a little sore. “How the hell did you survive that?” he whispers up to him.

Loki glances down, and his eyes darken. “I didn't. Next time we fight as a team, not separately. It's not easy to–“ the glitch comes again, longer this time. It's a few beats before the blindingly bright stripes of colors fade back to red-lined shadow. “–recreate the projection, you should count yourself lucky I could maintain it long enough for you to finish them off. If _you_ die here, you don't get a second chance.” He ducks and sidesteps over a snarled knot of the threads. “It's not my place to say, and rather hypocritical all things considered,” another sidestep followed by a quick turn to avoid strands twisting from a tree trunk to the ground, “but you're not really the greatest example of good mental health. Next time can you avoid picking those who are specially trained to kill me and can foresee your every move?”

He huffs and glares at the god. “Yeah, like you said. You're one to talk. And it's not like I was purposefully willing them into existence. This place gives me the creeps and I'm not exactly a super zen master like you and Bruce.”

“Who's carrying whose pathetic hide through a deadly obstacle course? You may wish to reevaluate your life choices.”

He didn't know it was possible to pack so much sarcasm into a whisper. Wow.

“You know, I can probably walk. Just saying. Not that I'm not enjoying being all snuggled up to sexy god abs or anything.”

Loki glares at him, lip curling in distaste. “You make me want to drop you onto the nearest thread and watch you burn alive. I would much rather do that than keep carrying you, but I honestly doubt you can walk a straight line let alone navigate this safely. And you walk like a herd of bilgesnipe.”

“That's the thing Thor keeps yammering on about, yeah?”

The god grimaces. “Most likely. Now hush, the less noise we make the better.” He readjusts his grip on him and spins out of the way of a tendril waving in the wind. One of them snakes towards them as if drawn magnetically and Loki quickly dances backwards through a particularly tight snare and out of its reach.

“This is really unsettling, not being able to move, you know. I sure hope you know what you're doing,” he whispers.

Loki huffs a laugh. “Not in the slightest. But I'm good at improvising.”

Yeah, that's reassuring. He shifts a bit closer to the god's chest, as it's really the only way to get any further away from the net of doom. It's not really effective, he can't move that much, but Loki notices the movement and pulls him tighter. He's not sure if it's comforting or freaky considering the fact that last time he saw the god they were trying to kill each other. He's going to stick with comforting for now since he's getting his fair share of freaky from everything else.

Loki continues to weave through the ever-tightening web slowly, mantis green eyes flitting back and forth as he calculates the best route. It's a slow and cautious process, and sometimes he retraces his steps after reaching a place too dense to move through safely.

Meanwhile he tries to stay still and minimize his surface area, and then decides that the white-blue strands look like miniaturized light walls from Tron. Thinking of it that way makes it a little less worrying, but not much.

Then Loki freezes, stiffening. His own breath catches in his throat as the god pauses, straddling part of the web, and starts practically hyperventilating as he stares ahead.

He turns his head to look over his shoulder and can see a pair of deep red orbs barely twenty feet away. They belong to a huge dark stallion who seems unaffected by the threads, stepping through them with no ill effect. Loki is trembling but doesn't move because there's nowhere to run. He glances up at the god's face and his eyes are like saucers, expression far more fearful than when he faced Thor.

 _”No,”_ he whimpers, _”please no.”_

He looks back to the advancing stallion. There's no way in hell either of them can fight this thing here. Shit fuck.

His mind racing, he locks onto the one piece of information he can. It's a stretch, but it's the best he can do. He presses the hand not trapped between him and the god to Loki's chest and murmurs as soothingly as he can (which isn't much, he's not good at the whole comforting people thing, that's Pepper's job). “Loki. _Loki._ It's not real. It's in your head, remember? Breathe. Focus on those books you were talking about.”

He starts listing the details he remembers from earlier – the feel, smell, look of new books, and when he runs out he launches into where his own train of thought had led. Loki shuts his eyes and slowly begins to steady his breathing, and he's guessing the god is going to his happy place or whatever it is he does. The stallion tosses its raven mane but slows, flickering, and for a second he can see the tangle of blue behind the horse.

“It's working,” he whispers to Loki before continuing his wandering monologue. He can feel the tension slowly drain from the god's body, relaxing from the trembling terror, and the stallion fades and flickers once more before disappearing. Loki slowly opens his eyes and loosens the death grip he'd been holding on his side. “Nicely done.” He's more than a little curious as to what has Loki so freaked out about a horse, but now's probably not the best time to ask. After a few moments of quiet breathing the god edges forward again without a word. The snarky comment he'd been planning to make about being carried bridal style through Loki's mind doesn't seem quite as funny anymore.

It's weird, how the darkness just goes on and on with no reprieve. He's not sure if night and day exist here, or what the difference would be if they did. Time seems different somehow.

Dip, turn, pause, jump.

The web seems to be thinning, but maybe it's just his imagination. Or maybe Loki's getting better at navigating it and is able to move faster.

Sidestep, duck, three paces.

No, it's definitely thinning albeit slowly. The going is not quite as tedious and Loki doesn't have to plan ten steps in advance, keeping forward momentum just to turn quickly enough. The blue veins in the ground wind like tiny rivers around his feet but he stays as steady as ever, each step light. Eventually the threads have become sparse enough for Loki to take multiple steps between them and Loki speaks for the first time since the demon-horse incident.

“Do you think you can walk?”

“Well, I'm not sure I'll know until I try all things considered. If I accidentally trustfall into the laser beams of death I'm coming back as a ghost to haunt your skinny ass.”

Loki lets his legs down and he tests his balance. His right leg's still a bit sore but more than workable and where the bullet wound was is apparently mostly healed. Weird, but dream logic so whatever. Once the god sees he's fine on his own he leads the way forward. It's a lot harder than Loki makes it look, and how he'd managed it hauling his dead weight around while he was unconscious he's got no clue. Again, gods and demons and dream logic, and trying to apply science to it makes his head hurt so he does his best to stop worrying about that and focus on not dying. Good trade-off.

A few times he get to laugh at Loki for having to duck under strings that he himself can easily walk under, but then the god gets his own back when there's a snarl too high for him to jump and Loki has to pull him up over it. He scowls for the next five minutes.

Then out of nowhere there's a prick of light through the trees, not blue like the pulsating strands of blue energy but light grey like a winter sky. The web has thinned to little more than a few curving threads in the ground. The god turns to him warily.

“We're nearly there.”

He raises an eyebrow in response. “Then why do you suddenly seem ten times more nervous than when we were in Doctor Doom's spiderweb?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have been a little liberal on my sprinkling of geeky references. You're welcome?


	7. The Truth of Gods

“This is the home stretch and _He_ will do anything to ensure I do not make it. I can provide a distraction, give you what should be enough time to get there, but you have to run.”

“Okay, where to?”

Loki closes his eyes, remembering. “Just outside the forest there lies a frozen lake. The ice is thin and cracked, it will seem impassible, but remember what I told you about expectation. Have faith it will hold you and it will.”

“This just turned into a really weird biblical analogy or something.” The god glares at him and he shuts up.

“In the middle of the lake there should be a tree, and on the far side of the roots is a small opening you should be able to squeeze through.” He opens his mouth to make a snide remark but another sharp look stops him. “Once you are through, follow the roots down and climb as far as you can go. You will know the end when you see it. There's a fair chance I'll lose my grip on the projection, but while everything else may seem to disappear you will still move relative to it. You're separate from my mind, thus why when everything else flickers you do not. If I do falter, keep running towards where the tree grows. You'll need the extra time if you are to avoid _Him._ And whatever happens,” he warns as they reach the edge of the forest, “don't stop and look back.”

Beyond them a ice blue lake stretches out, ringed on all sides by the sharp contrast of black forest. The sky lightens over it to the white that comes after a snow and light from a nonexistent sun glints off the cracks in the thin frozen layer. Like Loki said, a great golden tree rises from the center shining in the soft light like a beacon, its thick branches reaching upward as surely as its roots burrowed into the ice.

“Are you ready?”

He laughs nervously. “Not even remotely.”

“Good, then you might actually survive.” Loki takes off running at a breakneck pace across the ice at a thirty degree angle to him.

He heads straight for the tree, even as Loki shouts and curses some unseen entity in the sky. _The ice is strong the ice is strong,_ he has to remind himself when things glitch once, twice, as he sprints. He hears the ice crack behind him, a deep ominous sound, and Loki screams like a wild creature into the air.

_”You will regret the day, Thanos, when you dared lay a hand on the god of chaos! You can kill and kill for Mistress Death but you will never match my destruction! End worlds if you wish, but I can end EVERYTHING and watch Yggdrasill burn along with all the space between her branches!”_

Another crack echoes through the frozen air and his breath comes in quick clouds of sparkling fog as his feet pound over the frozen lake, toward that shining golden tree. A crash off to his right, and Loki chuckles madly.

_”In driving me mad you bring your own doom, you pathetic excuse for a would-be-god! You will never know true power, just as you will never know Her love! She always did like me best!”_

The ice groans as a roar of outrage crackles through the sky and there's a bang and a stifled cry behind him. He glances over his shoulder just as Loki's eyes roll back in his head and his body falls to ash. As he does, things flicker from lake to glitch to darkness. He almost stops, but remembers Loki's warning and keeps moving, a mad dash toward a glimmer of hope for safety. In his blindness he trips and rolls, losing his sense of direction, and stops terrified with no way of knowing where to go. A few seconds and everything flickers back again, the tree almost within his reach off to the left.

The ice ahead of him breaks in a jagged circle around the tree leaving a yawning gap between them, black-blue water lapping dangerously at the sharp edges. A deep and dangerous voice booms around him, sending more cracks through the frozen ground.

_”I see the little god would bring me a pet. How should I kill you, do you think?”_

It's too wide for him to jump here, but the other side looks like a smaller gap so he scrabbles to a stop and takes off to the left.

_”Or maybe I should keep you alive, like I did him. Hang you up and watch you scream, begging for death.”_

Every footfall leaves a spiderweb of fractures in the ice, weakening it further.

_”Maybe I'll have you kill your precious team. I wouldn't even have to control your mind, you know. You would do it willingly for me after we got to **really**  know each other.”_

A blast of light the same electric blue as the tangle in the forest shoots from nowhere and he barely manages to somersault in time to avoid it. The heat burns a hole in the leg of his pants and he's going to have a weird pattern of leg hair there for weeks. Assuming he doesn't die first.

_”You're nowhere near as strong willed as the would-be-king. I would barely lift a finger and have you squealing like a fat pig ready for the spit.”_

He's ready for the blast this time and keeps his clothes intact. On this side the gap is smaller, and he can see the opening in the roots.

_"You have such a beautiful little fire in your chest, pet, like a Tesseract waiting to be tamed. I would love to tear it from you and crush it 'till it burns blue and bright in my hand. Or maybe it would be better suited to destroying your **beloved**  Earth.”_

The ice is slicker than he realized, and his feet slip back as he jumps. He catches the rough edge of the ice as he falls short and it cuts deep gashes in his upper arms but he holds on, despite the blood and the shock of freezing water on his legs and lower back.

_”Oh, look how it struggles. **Pathetic**. You think you are iron willed but you are no more than brittle glass to snap between my fingers.”_

The next blast is directly in front of him as he tries to pull himself out of the water and the ice splinters into a thousand pieces, plunging him below the surface even as the water starts to freeze above him. Instinctually he gasps from the cold and gets a lungful of water. He forces himself to stop breathing again and scratches desperately against the ice, almost unable to keep his eyes open in the frigid water. A rumbling laugh is muffled by the water but it still sends his skin prickling.

_Think, Tony_. There's got to be some way out. This is all in Loki's head, right? He tries to will the ice away and when that doesn't work, air into his lungs. Both fail entirely.

Wait.

Roots. He twists back around in the water, and sure enough the tree's roots spiral downwards into the unseen depths of the water. In theory they'd be airtight if he could walk in them safely otherwise, so it's not much of a shot, but it's all he can think of.

He flips forward and kicks off from the ice, trying to fight back the growing pain in his chest from oxygen deprivation as he grips the roots of the tree and pulls himself around the spiraling helix they create, and digs his fingers between them to find a weak point. Blackness is edging out his vision, his lungs scream for air, and moving is getting harder and harder in the freezing water.

Then out of nowhere his hand pushes through the roots as if they weren't there at all, like a 3D game where the engine renders two objects incorrectly and they can pass through each other unimpeded. With the last of his strength he pulls, falling forward into darkness.

*.*.*.*

He hits the ground and rolls, gasping for breath and barely manages to catch hold of a root to keep from tumbling down the stair-like system. There's no way to measure how long he's tucked in recovery position, hacking up water and panting desperately, but his vision slowly clears until he feels a little more normal again. Emphasis on a little. Almost drowning fucking _sucks._ A killer headache wants to split his skull (and that's in comparison to the hangover he had after his birthday party back in 2010 which is saying something), his lungs are probably going to keep aching for weeks, and his throat is rubbed raw from coughing and coughing and it still not being quite enough. Even if he wanted to move he's not sure he could, is it possible for limbs to turn into jello? 'Cause this sure as hell feels like it. Maybe it's some freak incident of figures of speech becoming true. Or some other shitty development in Loki's mind hell.

He's starting to get what drove the god over the edge and into “I'm going to take over an alien planet” mode. If his mind was this fucked he probably would too. Well, probably not take over a world, that was definitely a product of some serious inferiority complex, but something else impossibly idiotic and insane. If he were still in the weapons business he might decide to bury arc reactor fueled bombs at strategic points in the Earth's crust and blow the fucking place to kingdom come while he hovered in the atmosphere cackling madly. Thinking about it, it would make an impressive light show.

Wait, is he seriously considering this? Holy shit he needs all the world's oxygen _now._

Hang on, back up, would it be an inferiority or superiority complex? There's a difference. What was it again? Oh well, whatever. One of those. Some screw loose in the guys head or a ranting evil monster thingy or forest of demons or whatever the fuck this place was. And seriously, what's with the tree? In a freezing lake? No sense. None at all. He's so done.

Except he's not because he's fucking _trapped inside the head of a crazy maybe-god alien evil villain world conquerer with a fuckton of issues and he really needs a therapist._ Not sure if it's Loki or him he's referring to for that last bit. Probably both. But feelings, ew, so not dealing with those. That's what copious amounts of alcohol and decent looking women are for.

_Oxygen oh thank... he'd say god but he's sure as hell not thanking this one because what the fuck it's his fucking mind he almost drowned in and that has two connotations doesn't it. Oh well._

His head feels kind of funny. It's probably not good to black out and then almost drown in the span of less than a day. Probably less than a day. Who knows.

_Status code 101_205_307_418_

Wait, no, he's not a teapot. Is he? (He's a little teapot short and stout...)

_Status code 410_415_418_

He's a little teapot short and stout, he's a little teapot short and st–

What the fuck get it out of his head! Get it out! What the hell get it out!

_Status code 508_423_

Okay, that's better.

He thinks of books and breathes, not liking whatever the fuck was happening to his mind. Oxygen deprivation is weird.

When he finally gets himself into a sort of working order he remembers that hey, these are stairy-thingies, he should probably go down them because he's sure as hell not going back up them to blasty laser land. Down and down and down he goes, where he'll stop? Nobody knows!

An indeterminate amount of time later his mind seems to recover and he can think clearly again without sounding like a drunk stoner. That's probably a good sign. The roots twist downwards like a spiral staircase and are somehow lit from outside, warm yellow light glistening off the shimmering bronze within. It's the closest thing to sunlight he's seen since he got here and the first time, he realizes, that he's not half-freezing. It's kind of zen, the strangely natural yet ordered descent and he should probably be more weirded out by this than he is. Then again he was being carried bridal style through a forest of deadly knitting not too long ago, so in comparison this is a lot more logical.

At some point he stops going down and starts climbing _up._ As to when that point in time was he can't tell you, he doesn't even notice it. Somewhere he reaches the center of the gravitational force and things just... flip. The light filtering through the roots change, pinpoints like starlight and a soft white glow as he climbs silver branches upwards. Spiraling, always spiraling.

A wave of pleasant warmth floods the air and the yellow light returns above him. When he finally reaches the top, he stops in a mixture of shock and awe.

It's... a room, sort of, a passageway opening into an enormous library with floor-to-ceiling dark wooden shelves packed with leather-bound books. Candles line the walls and hang from golden chandeliers from the high marble rib-vaulted ceiling, vellum and parchment scrolls are scattered over stained wooden tables, and glass jars and vials in a rainbow of colors line the only areas of the shelves not taken over by books. More of the volumes and tomes are piled by desks and against the walls, and it seems as though a one-room cathedral had been turned into a library from a fantasy novel, complete with golden dragons on the walls and half-brewed potions scattered about.

He's pulled from his reverie by the sound of a book sliding back into place on the shelf not far from him, and he turns toward it.

He would swear but he's at a loss for words.

The Æsir claim godhood, Thor and Loki and the rest. He'd never really believed that, though, because despite all their strength and age and outdated English they're really no more than aliens. It's reinforced his long-standing atheism because they're proof that the so-called gods aren't all they're cracked up to be. They breathe and bleed and die just like everyone else, they just happen to be a bit ahead in terms of lifespan.

But the man before him? This is a god.

He's both undeniably Loki and the furthest thing from, tall lithe and graceful, viridian eyes ancient and wise and untainted by the madness that's claimed the Loki he knows. He radiates calm, and the small smile that graces his lips is more genuine than any he's seen back at the tower. Or in his life, really, people don't like him that much except for his money and fame. He kind of tends to be an asshole in that regard.

If anything could ever make him religious, it's him. He's beautiful, and ancient, and _terrifying._

This Loki moves slowly, purposefully, long emerald robes flowing elegantly as if to emphasize his grace, and the golden jewelry he wears is tasteful but reinforces his royal air. His hair isn't slick and half-unkept as is that of the crazed Asgardian. It hangs down his back in a swirl of raven silk, thin braids running down the sides and tying it back at his shoulder blades.

“You need not fear me, friend, I hold no ill intent.” He dips into a cordial bow and his voice is warm and calm, sunlight and dew on the grass and what the hell sort of comparisons is his mind making, they're totally nonsensical.

“Uh... hi?”

The god smiles and extends a hand to him. “Come. There is much to discuss.”

He's kind of unsure what to do, raises his arm to take the hand but pauses halfway because how do you react to the ancient-god-like version of the man who tried to kill you and everyone you care about, and a shit ton of people you don't. Repeatedly. Loki chuckles and reaches to take his hand.

“You no doubt have many questions, and all will be answered in time.” He leads him to a worn leather couch and sits sideways, tucking his legs up under him and gesturing for him to sit.

He does, sort of half-sideways and definitely not gracefully. Not his department.

“How do you fare?”

That forces out a nervous laugh. Well, it's partially nervous and partially because of the utter absurdity of the question. It's enough to kick him back into normal Tony Stark mode. “Seriously? I mean, besides the general confusion at the fact that I suddenly ended up in my arch-enemy's glitchy, freezing, demonic “forest of your fucked-up mind” where I destroyed two sets of armor and was shot in the side before blacking out, even more freaky bit of the forest filled with blue lines of _slow and painful death,_  icy lake with an evil voice in the sky that kills said arch enemy for the _second time_  and then starts threatening torture and shit, laser blasts of doom, and near drowning in an icy lake before finding your slash Loki's little...” he gestures vaguely at the room, “whatever this is, I'm doing alright. You?”

“You have my deepest apologies and regrets for what it took to get here. Our mind... mine and his, they are both one and separate in a way that is difficult to explain, is far more broken than most can understand.”

“Yeah, I've sort of noticed that. So who the hell are you, no offense, because I'm sort of not getting any of this. At all.”

The god adjusts the pin on a golden chain looped in his hair. “I am Loki. Not Loki as you know him, much older than his thousand-odd years. Rather the essence of Loki through the aeons – Ragnarök to Ragnarök.”

“Ragna-what, now?”

“The twilight of the gods, the Æsir call it—though it's a bit of a misinterpretation—while your kind knows it as the apocalypse. Not as in the Judeo-Christian portrayal of it, where the end is final, though those who believe in such an end attain it. That is a conversation for another day, how the many religions of Yggdrasill intertwine. To call Ragnarök a twilight is an apt description of it, however. It is a cycle of change and renewal, a necessary for those who think themselves immortal, as their lives tend to grow stagnant and complacent. Most find their place in Valhalla or Hel at their end, but some are reincarnated each time.”

“Like you,” he verifies.

Loki nods slowly. “Like me. Thor as well, Bor, Odin, Baldr, Laufey... the key figures in the cycle. The core essence remains through the ages, an assimilation of knowledge and wisdom. Loki as you know him is not directly aware of this, it is more of a subconscious force, though as you have no doubt seen he has some residual knowledge of it. Enough to know it is untouched by the chaos of his mind and is a sanctuary amongst the madness that threatens to claim him.”

“Yeah, um, what's up with that? The dark, creepy stuff and the guy possessing him or whatever. Thanos, he said?”

“Thanos,” Loki affirms grimly. “There are... many things, in our shared past, tragedies and pain so great that it threatens to break us. The so-called prophecies that the gods count as fact yet are only retellings of the past cycle meant as warnings and lessons to be learned, carried out again because they fear the unknown.

“Loki as an entity is one of neutrality, who serves himself alone. We hold both great darkness and great light, and that almost always balances out to a perfect middle grey. Only rarely do those fall slightly out of balance, but this is one of those times, and the scales have tipped towards good – but that is exactly why this cycle has been so difficult for him. In others Loki does what is best for Loki, because no one else will. This time is less inclined to avoid danger and trouble to instead aid the greater good, and it has brought a great burden onto his shoulders that he should never have had to bear. The details are his to tell you.

“What you have seen as you walked his mind, the darkness and constant fear, is a product of that. We are the one fated to be an entity of chaos and the bringer of the end and as such are feared. In trying to be good he has only increased that hatred and is more influenced by it to the point where it seeps into his psyche. You have seen the result.”

He fiddles with the hem of his shirt and frowns at the scorch marks along one side. “And the guy in the sky?”

Loki sighs. “Thanos. Which, as a warning, is a name you should never speak aloud as outside this place he will hear and hunt you down for sport if nothing else.”

“Damn. He's like Voldemort.”

“If you like. I suppose _He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named_ fits quite well.”

He raises an eyebrow at the god. _“You_ know Harry Potter.”

“Any number of its versions. Miss Rowling is a recurring character in the history of Midgard, but that is beside the point. A sorcerer, especially one of the skill and power as we, builds mental walls throughout the course of their training and life. The staff he carried had a discrete power to twist emotions that already existed in such a way that could slip through the cracks, but not even Thanos in all his might could hope to break those barriers and control him. That is not in any way to say that he did not try, the scars Loki earned at his hands he will carry with him the rest of his life, and they shattered his mind and will. The details of what happened elude me, such was the damage to his psyche, I only remember what he does.

“The voice you heard, the power that would do anything to keep him from peace... it was Loki.”

It's possible he gives himself mental whiplash from the double-take that earns. “It was fucking _Loki?”_

“A shard of him, yes. A man can only crack so many times before he breaks and what is by far the greatest pain he has not even come to terms with enough for it to manifest. Just as the two of you saw your fears manifest in the forest so too does Loki's deepest self-loathing, rage, and terror form into the closest interpretation of them as he self destructs. He cannot come to terms with it, with himself, and from that comes a subconscious separation of “it” and “him.” Thanos is certainly a great threat to him and the realms but not so much as is the war he fights against himself.”

“Shit, I knew the guy had some issues, but wow.”

The god drops his gaze and smooths his emerald robes over his knees. “Where does one's self end and sickness begin? Are not each one and the same? Thousands and thousands of Ragnaröks and still I do not know the answers we most seek. Instinct is my best indicator and I believe that this time Loki is truly good, but his demons have great power over him. If we are to end this he must come to terms with his past.”

“End... what?” He taps his fingers on his arc reactor subconsciously, drumming a staccato beat.

“The cycle,” Loki explains, staring out at the expanse of the room. “Ragnarök. It was meant to aid in the gods' evolution, a loop of rebirth in which each time they grow from the last. This time is different, though. The past hundred or so Ragnaröks have seen the Æsir stagnate. There is no more that the cycle can do to further them and so it has become counterproductive. Yggdrasill seems to have become aware of this, as for the first time since my creation the pieces are falling into place to break it. Doing so will be no easy task but this time I believe it can be done.”

“And just why exactly do you get to decide that? I mean, I'm not saying I'm jumping for joy at the thought of the apocalypse but it seems like one guy doesn't get to make that decision.”

Loki give a tired smile. “None of the others will. The gods are too set in their ways and abhor change. I am the god of chaos – I have no fear of the unknown. I am the only one who can and so the duty falls to me to bring the next era upon the realms. No doubt you have some familiarity with that, having to take responsibility even when others oppose because you know it is right, and as such you know that it is no easy task. Yggdrasill is waiting to move on, I can hear her whispers, but she cannot unless the gods allow her to.”

He stands and begins to pace a short distance from the couch to a desk and back again, scuffing his feet. “So let's say I'm on board with this whole thing, which the jury's still out on but let's say I am, what the hell am _I_ supposed to do about it? You're the god, after all.”

“Ah, but that is just the point, Tony. I am a god. Gods grow old and think themselves all-knowing but in truth we lack the urgency that drives your kind to your own form of greatness. Mortals see much that we cannot, and you more than most. I know not what part you play in this, only that yours is a great one and that without your aid these things will not come to pass so I ask you, friend, to help us. I know well that it is neither your duty nor responsibility to do so, and there is nothing in my power that can force you to do what you do not wish. The choice is yours, and yours alone.”

Wonderful. Why the hell does this sort of thing happen to him so often? Not the, you know, god stuff, but the rest of it. The whole “the fate of the worlds rests in your hands, do the right thing and save us all” thing. Just _once,_ can't somebody else save the world? Worlds? Whatever? He flops back onto the couch with a huff.

“Okay, fine. But next time get like, Romanoff to do it. She signed up for this, not me.”

“Heroes are made, not born Tony. You made the choice to do good and that is never an easy burden to bear. Of course you are not in this alone, and I have no doubt that your friends and allies will be needed to see this through, but you are the lynch pin that keeps the pieces together.”

“So what the hell now?”

“Now,” Loki twists his hand pulls a golden dagger from the air, “you take this. Enough to prove to the gods your words are true should you have need to, and in time it may aid Loki in another matter. That is yet to be seen.” The god holds it out with the handle towards him and he takes it, running his thumbnail over the emeralds and engravings on the hilt. “It will not be much longer 'til Loki slips his bonds and he will come for you first, as you have walked his mind and are an easy link to Midgard. I cannot say what state he will be in either physically or psychologically, only that it will not be a good one. He will not harm you, not right away, as he holds a certain respect for you after the events of the battle. Use the time wisely, talk him down and show you mean no harm. His mind may be broken but his heart is still set on good.”

“You got a general time range for me there, buddy? I don't really want to wake up to you or him or whoever flipping a shit while I'm in my pyjamas or something.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “If that is your largest concern then I question _your_ sanity. What you are wearing is of little importance. However, it should be little more than a week, less if he thinks to siphon his energy through the bonds.”

“Uggh.” He give up on trying to be relatively dignified and shoves his face into the cushion. “Fantastic. Seriously, though, why does it always have to be me who takes care of the world I barely even like? And more importantly, how much have the Chitauri already destroyed my tower?”

The god chuckles. “I may be old, friend, but I am neither omniscient nor all-knowing. That depends on how careful your friends were in taking them down.”

“I hate my life,” he mumbles through the pillow.

“Oh come now, it's not so bad. If you forget the super villains, probable alcoholism, trust issues, complete lack of self preservation...”

He glares over the cushion and scowls. “You're a dick.”

Loki twists a lock of hair in his fingers, trying and failing to hide a smirk. “I may be tempered by the aeons, Tony, but I will never cease to be the god of mischief.”

“Yeah? Well I'm the one holding a knife and one of your fancy cushions, so don't try anything or the pillow gets it.”

“Fair enough. Now, I assume you would like at some point to regain a physical form? Unless of course you prefer to stay here a while, I certainly have time for it. All the time in the world, it turns out. And the next one, and the next one, and the next one...”

“Okay, now you're starting to remind me of Loki.”

“I told you, we're one and the same.”

“Fantastic. Now, how about you beam me up, Scotty? Because unlike you I have, you know, stuff to do. And a limited time to do it in.”

“As you wish. My apologizes in advance if you feel unwell upon your return, such is the risk with this sort of energy conversion. And don't lose that knife, I'm quite fond of it… Farewell, friend, and may the Norns smile on you 'til we meet again.”

“Sayonara.” He gives a cocky salute and Loki smiles. Then everything is a rush of light and color and falling flying rising twisting weight and height and value light dark red gold green _blue_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering what all the status code babbling meant, although it's not really important to the story, you can look here: http://dft.ba/-httpsc
> 
> (and the first person to connect the dots and figure out which literary classic I've been alluding to for the past seven chapters gets a drawing or short fic, because I'm curious to see if anyone caught it)


	8. Reformation Hangover

He opens his eyes in his bed and immediately feels as though he's had a three-day-long drinking spree. The bathroom seems like lightyears away but he makes it in time to dry heave into the toilet and lay down on the cool tile, cradling his head. Why is everything so _bright._

Hell, if it weren't for the knife laying beside him he'd be pretty damn convinced that this _was_ a hangover. Owww...

“Jarvis, lights at, like, five percent. Or less. Preferably less and ow ow ow ow owww...”

“Good to see you home, sir, might I ask-”

He gestures wildly at the room and whines. “Jarvis shut up you're too loud, my head's trying to split itself in two.”

The lights dim and Jarvis is blessedly quiet. He manages to pull himself up to the sink to splash water on his face and realizes that he's sore. Really sore. Like, battled your way through a forest of psycho Avengers and monsters sore.

Oh, hey, his face is all scratched up.

“Dammit, you son of a bitch!” he yells at the ceiling, “If you can teleport me from kingdom come couldn't you, y'know, fix up a few cuts and bruises? Bastard.”

Nobody responds. Not that he expected them to, but it makes him feel a little better.

Wait, so does this mean that he had blood all over his face while he was chilling in Loki's little mind palace? Ha. Good. Maybe some of it rubbed off on the asshole's pillow. He washes the remainder off though, sometimes the beaten hero look is sexy but he's not feeling it right-

“Stark, where the hell have you been‽”

Why does everything have to be so _loud?_ “Jarv…”

“I'm afraid Mr. Stark is suffering what appears to be a quite spectacular hangover, by my observations. It may be prudent to speak more quietly If you want to get any response other than a dirty look,” Jarvis informs just a bit more snidely than strictly necessary.

Clint seems torn between smacking him in the face and breaking down into laughter. Unfortunately, he's going for option number three from the look on his face. Dammit. He so does not need a lecture right now.

“Do you have any idea what's been going on here, Stark? Because we got back last Thursday to find a nice draft and a weird note on the wall. All it said was that the 'enemy' was coming and you'd been 'taken somewhere safe.'” He raises an eyebrow when Tony snorts, but continues. “Two hours later we were facing a swarm of pissed Chitauri, one man down, in the middle of the night, with SHIELD too far out to act as backup.”

Another wave of nausea passes over him and he moans. “Lemme guess—the sun was in your eyes, your underwear were tight, and your heart was two sizes too small?”

“Very funny. I kind'a want to get back to my place, because there's a cookout tonight, so if you want to be a little more helpful that'd be fantastic. Anything you wanna say?”

Tony looks up at him. “My head hurts.”

“I'm getting that food one way or another, Stark, don't make me put an arrow through your armor.”

“You do that and you're not getting any more trick arrows.”

That earns him a dirty look. “Nice try, bozo, but I know how to make my own. Details, now please. Coffee's getting cold.”

“Are you really this concerned about food?”

“I'm hungry, and I haven't eaten for a day and a half. Yeah, food sounds great right now.”

Fuck, is it possible for your skull to split in half from teleportation shit? Sure seems like it.

“Barton, can we at least sit down somewhere? I'm going to fall over. Also, if you can grab the med kit that'd be fantastic. And three handfuls of aspirin. Maybe three and a half.” Not bothering to wait for a response he wanders out to the common room and collapses onto the sofa.

Clint follows grudgingly, bringing the requested items (well, a bottle of pills instead of handfuls, which is irritating), then gives him a once-over.

“Did you get shot?”

He pulls off his shirt with a wince and looks down at the nice smear of crimson around the wound. It's partially healed, enough that it's not bleeding, but still hurts like hell. Aspirin rattles in the bottle when he pours a few more pills that strictly necessary into his hand and downs them dry, then he gets to work patching himself up. Curse stupid gods not healing shit that's their own fault.

“So…?”

“Long story short, I got to spend some quality time with the guy who's essentially our founder.”

“Fury?”

Tony thinks for a minute. “I'm not sure if that would have been better or worse, actually. At least Loki has two eyes, the eyepatch is disconcerting.”

That earns him a disbelieving look that obviously expects more of an explanation.

“So Loki kidnapped you, then shot you in the side? What, he still pissed about you ruffling his hair after he asked for the drink?”

“Actually, that didn't come up, which is kind of surprising now that I think about it, but no. He didn't shoot me. Actually took a couple bullets for me, which is nice because that wasn't the best day of my life. How long'd you say I was gone?”

Clint checks his phone for the date, then turns it around so he can see. “Ten days.”

“Fuck, that's weird. Anyway, yeah, Essentially it's been one of the weirdest day-slash-days of my life. I really don't get most of what happened and it's giving me an even worse headache to think about, but apparently bad shit's coming and the chitauri killing me and a lot of the planet is counterproductive for him.” Damn, he hasn't been this scraped up since that incident in '96.

“So. Loki's out?”

“Nope. At least I don't think so? Like I said, it's confusing. His inner goddess said he's still bound on Asgard, anyway.”

The archer makes a face. “I really did not need to connect Loki with Fifty Shades. Oh god, you just scarred me for life.”

“Join the club. Anyway, beside the blood and splitting headache, I'm counting this one as a win since I'm relatively alive and the world's in one piece. I'm a little fuzzy on the details but that's the gist of it… do I have to formally debrief SHIELD? Please tell me I don't. I really, really hate paperwork.”

“You're pathetic.” He rolls his eyes. “I'll give the team the rundown, and Nat'll probably pass it along to Fury.”

“I love you.”

Another face. “Please don't. I really don't want any form of physical affection from you. At all. Personal space, man.”

“Aww, you're no fun. But tell you what, I'll finish those vanes I'm working on. Consider it a trade for the paperwork.”

“How about you just stop hitting on me?”

“I was not hitting on you! That was totally platonic!”

Clint laughs. “You are way too easy to work up. I'm getting food, there's a meeting tomorrow at noon. Be there. Steve will probably have questions but I'll brief him beforehand. See 'ya around.” With a wave he heads to the elevator, which Jarvis opens without prompting. His AI is the best AI.

Well, that went better than expected. The questioning will be a bitch but whatever. He doesn't get most of what happened, like he told Clint, and if that asshole won't push too much then he doubts the others will either. They trust him, which is mostly a first in his life, but it's definitely got its perks.

When the door's slid closed almost silently, he falls back onto the cushions and is asleep within minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a short chapter again, sorry.
> 
> I'm taking a more comic book approach with Clint here, because I kind of love Fraction's interpretation (and Aja's art, because holy crow is it awesome) and want to play around with it a little. There'll be more about his feelings about the battle and towards Loki later on, as well as what's happened in the interim between then and the start of the story, but if you feel like he's not reacting as strongly as he should be my take is that after so many years training with and working for SHIELD, his and Natasha's approaches would be a bit different than, say, Steve's or Bruce's. If Tony's relatively alright and not freaking out then he'll take the intel and process it, then wait for the meeting the next day to work out the details and formulate a response with the rest of the team. With a year or so to already come to terms with the mind control he won't be as inclined to immediately rush in without planning to take Loki down if there isn't an imminent threat, and will probably also realize that Tony will give more reliable information after fixing himself up than when he's unable to turn the lights on.


	9. Choosing a Path (Or Lack Thereof)

It's raining the day it happens. Not the kind you see in the movies, the kind that makes you want to kiss or dance in it, but the awful drizzle that just makes everyone miserable. The steam over the roads isn't enchanting, and the grey gradient of fog makes it hard to see. It's one of the least enjoyable missions they've been called out on in months and takes way longer than it should, because freaking Zola decided to dust off Doughboy and he's a bitch to deal with even on a good day. Everyone except for Tony and Thor ends up retreating pretty early on since the only thing they were doing was getting caught and covered in doughy... stuff. The entire thing is gross.

Heat lightning arcs overhead through the ash grey sky and it turns out that while Thor can create and control storms, he apparently can't disperse ones that already exist save for blow them around a little. It's unpleasant for everyone involved, and when Thor and Tony get back the others are fixing their hair after the showers they had to take to get all the extra goo out of their hair. Their uniforms are going to need some serious laundering. Tony goes straight to the workshop to get out of the suit and sets Jarvis to crank up the heat and burn the crap off.

He tinkers with a new hologram system that's been in the works for a while, one that he can carry more easily, but the constant flying in circles had been exhausting and it's not long before he tossed the pieces aside, managing to knock a scale model of his suit onto the cement where it splintered into pieces. Heh. Whoops. It might as well be bedtime, late afternoon or not, because either it's his heavenly mattress or the glass desk and the former definitely sounds preferable.

Much to Tony's irritation Thor avoided the goop altogether and is unfazed by the weather, so in the meantime the god wanders up the common room to get a drink before he changes out of his soaking armor. Pepper sees him on the way and gives him a disapproving look when she sees his hair dripping on the carpet, and he grins sheepishly. Honestly, Pepper should become a superhero. All she'd have to do is glare and the villains would hang their heads in shame. She's got that effect.

Three hours after his head hits the faux down pillow (or two hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-seven-point-eight seconds after he fell fast asleep), Tony starts awake to a crash and the sound of shattering glass. Really? Steve would have been so proud of him, he was finally getting some rest, there could have been congratulatory pancakes at that new place down the block! Life sucks. Bleary-eyed and bed-headed he stumbles upstairs to find the Avengers in various degrees of defensive positions, a familiar pair of horns, and evidence that his shatter-proof windows don't quite lived up to their name. Oh, for fuck's sake.

The god is gripping the frame of what used to be a floor-to-ceiling window, blood running down his arm from where the remnants of the glass dig into his palm. His back is turned, shoulders heaving with each heavy breath.

Having long since given up on being a reasonable human being, Tony wanders through the doorway toward him while trying to clear the sleepy haze from his head. It takes a few seconds, but his eyes finally stay open without significant effort on his part. “This is the third time you've smashed one of my windows, don't make me call the cops on your sorry ass,” he says, unimpressed.

Loki stiffens and his black cape billows out behind him as he spins, viridian eyes burning and branches of magic climbing down his forearm to pool in his bloody hand. The god's shed his normal green and is dressed in black from head to toe save for his golden horns and vambraces.

_"Hello, pet.”_

“Tony,” Steve calls, “get over here before you get hurt.”

Tony ignores him in favor of raising an eyebrow at the god.

“How should I kill you, do you think? For daring to invade my mind.” He makes a frightening picture as his black cape swirls around his ankles.

“Loki, listen to me-”

The god giggles madly, baring his teeth in a feral grin. “Or should I keep you alive, perhaps? Hang you up and watch you scream, begging for death.”

“Look, I know you're not okay, and I didn't expect-”

“Maybe I'll have you kill your precious team,” he drags a thumb across his mouth, leaving a valley quickly swallowed again by the pool of blood after revealing a split in his lip a good centimeter high. “I wouldn't even have to control your mind, you know. You would do it willingly for me after we got to _really_  know each other.”

“Stark…” Natasha calls warily and sends him a look that clearly says 'what the actual hell are you doing, shut your sorry mouth and get your ass over here before you get yourself killed.' It's a look he's used to.

Wait a sec, though, because this is all starting to sound eerily familiar.

_“Loki.”_ He tosses the comforter he'd dragged with him aside and climbs over the sofa to stand in the god's personal space, glaring up at him. Oh, he's in his pyjamas. The fucker probably knew.

“You listen to _me_ now, and shut the fuck up while I talk. You said so yourself, I've been in your mind, and by your power not mine if you'd actually think about it.” He fists a hand in the black leather crossing Loki's chest and shoves him roughly against the wall, never breaking eye contact. “Your ancient god buddy says to not threaten you but you know what? I know you. You don't do peaceful and you sure as _hell_ don't do pity, so listen up. Whatever happened between Asgard and here? He's not in your head. That's all you. I recognize every word coming out of your mouth because I heard them before on that fucking ice. You want to know who was so desperate to keep us from getting to safety? Not him. It's all just you, Loki.”

The god is snarling at him with the aggression of a cornered animal. Good. That means he's nervous.

“The next words out of your mouth? I already know them. You're going to tell me that I'm not as strong willed as the king of Asgard. As you. Fuck that. Stop feeling sorry for yourself for two seconds and realize that you're only fighting with yourself. How the hell do you think that will end, huh?” He punctuates it with another shove against the wall, “You're not a god, Loki. You're not a king, and you're not a prince.” The two pieces of the god's helm separate under his fingers and he throws the horns behind him on the sofa. Loki's struggling but he's well aware of the fact that if he really wanted to it would be easy enough for the god to throw him off and kill him where he falls. He steps back and pulls the emerald studded knife from where it had fallen with the blanket. “And you don't have to be the bringer of Ragnarök either. I talked to you, you know. Not just this you,” he rams the end of the hilt into the god's sternum, “ _this_ you.” The gold glints in the sunlight streaming through a gap the clouds when he holds it up to show him. “So cut the shit. I've seen your demons, helped you fight the fuckers off. Somewhere in your mind you wanted me to help you because you fucking sacrificed yourself to get me to that tree safely. You're in pieces you asshole, and it's about time you stopped running from the truth because believe me, it doesn't work. The faster you run the harder it bites.

“Stop struggling to pretend you're some big bad ruler of the world. You're not. Maybe you've got an iron will, but you've snapped. Fucking stop the charade. The only one you're fooling is yourself.”

Loki's breathing raggedly, staring incensed at him but he ignores it, turns his back to the god, and crosses the space to the bathroom while the Avengers gape at him. He's so going to ruin his nice white towels but who gives a crap, it's not like he can't afford new ones. He grabs the hand towel and holds it under the warm water, wringing it out before turning back. The god is still pressed against the wall where he left him.

He grabs the front of his leathers again and drags the god to the armchair in the corner, pushes him roughly into it with a look that dares him to move, and perches on the arm facing him. “Thing is,” he bends down and wipes at the blood on the god's chin, “none of it matters. That's the thing they don't tell you as a kid or teach you in school. Most people never even realize it. Nothing's really important, we're dying from the moment we're conceived. Life's a rigged game we're all forced to play, and there are three outcomes.” The god winces and sets his jaw in pain when he wipes at his lips, so he turns the towel inside out and dabs as lightly as he can to still get the caked blood off. “One, you stop playing. Off yourself and laugh in the face of death.” It turns out some of the wounds are still bleeding and he grimaces. They're spaced fairly evenly above and below his lips and cut all the way through. “Two, you give up and just survive. Follow the stupid paths everyone points you along and play your part in screwing shit up.” He jumps up and goes back to the bathroom, pulling out the extensive first aid kit he's put together over the years because between the lab and super not-so-heroic duties he's pretty sure it's been at least a year or two since he hasn't had some sort of injury at any given point in time. Right now it's a bullet wound and a shitload of cuts, plus a few burns from the workshop. He finds the alcohol wipes and grabs a handful before returning to the arm of the chair and tearing one of the packets open.

“Three, and the one everyone's scared to take,” he presses lightly against the upper right-hand side of the god's lip, “you say fuck it all. Screw the rules and play how _you_ want. If you're lucky, you might even do some good. That's it, isn't it? That's what nobody ever sees. God of mischief, lies, chaos... that doesn't equal evil. Never did. Your tree-dwelling buddy told me about your past lives.” The god lets out a stifled whine when he wipes his bottom lip. “Yeah, yeah, I know it hurts. I promise you that an infection hurts a hell of a lot worse. I've got experience.” The god grits his teeth and apparently thinks if he glares at the wall intently enough that he'll be able to burn a hole in it. “Anyway, whatever you call him, your essence or some shit, says that most lives you're neutral. You take care of yourself and help people as it benefits you. Well, that's fine and dandy, except this time it's not true, is it? You care. That's your tragic flaw.”

He switches back to the towel, taking care of the smaller cuts on his face. “So like I said, three choices. From the looks of things I'm guessing you're not taking the first road so it's your pick: tear out my arc reactor like you planned and destroy everything, raze your world tree to the ground and smile as it burns, or say fuck Ragnarök. Fuck fate, fuck prophecy, and fuck destiny. It's all a load of bullshit anyway. Make your own rules and piece yourself back together shard by shard. What's it gonna be, Loki? Two shitty roads diverge in a dark-ass wood and you've got to make your choice, before my scary friends over there remember their training.”

Loki still won't make eye contact and for a minute he's starting to think the god's going to go with the whole burning the world to the ground route. Which would suck. When he speaks, it's choked and angry.

“Once broken, a thing can never be made whole. What option do I have?”

“Stop moving, asshole, you're making this harder than it needs to be. If it stings that means it's working – that's the alcohol killing stuff.” He pushes on Loki's jaw to get him to turn his head. “I never said it was gonna be perfect, did I? Trust me, I've got experience. But you can try. Do the best job you can, try not to loose too many of the little pieces, and keep the glue from getting too messy. Preferably not superglue your fingers together in the process because that hurts like hell. Look, if I thought you were a lost cause I would have told the entire team you were coming and you'd be dead by now, but the Avengers are built off second chances. Or third, fourth, hell tenth chances. For all intents and purposes every one of us has seriously screwed ourselves over, and I'm talking big time. We've patched ourselves up and moved on, taken option three. This is your second chance. You gonna take it, or the arc reactor? I'm getting kind'a bored waiting.”

Loki doesn't answer at first, just stares out at the room. His eyes flutter closed and slowly the anger drains from his face. The vambraces shimmer away and his leathers disappear to leave him in a tunic and pants, his greaves gone in favor of simple black boots. He opens his eyes as his cape shifts into a hooded cloak held in place by the same golden band across his chest as he wore in the battle, now engraved with runes and drawings of animals. When he finally looks up to him his tobernite eyes show his age, not as he'd seen while in the god's mind-library whatever, but in a thousand old sorrows. Weariness is etched into his every feature, accentuated by the scarlet wounds and the scars running from temple to temple across his eyes.   
With an unreadable expression, he reaches up to trail fingers over the soft glow of the arc reactor.

“You trust me so much as to give me that choice?”

He shrugs. “I get the impression that somewhere, you still want a second chance. I wouldn't have given one to myself a few years ago but someone else did, and I might as well pay it forward. You did sacrifice yourself for me after all. Twice.”

A green shimmer follows Loki's finger around the edge of the glass and burns a hole in the fabric over it as he stands. He turns the reactor and lifts it out of the socket, not so far as to threaten the integrity of the wiring, just enough to make Tony's heart beat a little faster in concern.

“Humankind tries so badly to become something other than lemmings. You were doomed from the day you first stood upright but find the need to be more than animals so pressing that you'd do anything to prove that fact. What you fail to understand is that each and every one of us, when it comes down to it, are no more than beasts like any other. To care for another enough to give one's own life isn't a natural instinct save for one of parenthood, and is only a weakness.” He lets out a breathy laugh. “Once I thought there was something more for me than just living as animal does, and would have done anything to prove that.”

“And now?”

A cruel, feral grin spreads across his face and his eyes harden. “I am a beast, and no more. I allow myself no such weakness.” A sharp yank on the reactor sends Tony falling forward as the wires snap, and the god disappears.

*

There's a beat, in which everyone is too stunned to move.

_“LOKI-!”_ Thor yells, enraged, looking around as though he'll find his brother hiding in the shadows.

Natasha's already gone, sprinting down the stairs two at a time to his workshop, which is the only reason he's staying as calm as he is when Loki just _ripped his arc reactor out of his fucking chest,_ although that's not to say he's not hyperventilating a little. Okay, maybe a lot, and it takes a slap from Clint to snap him out of it.

“Twenty-three seconds max, just chill. Although I have to say, that was possibly the stupidest thing I've ever seen you do, which is saying something considering I was at your birthday party back in 2010.”

“You were THERE!?”

The archer shrugs. “Tash was the one writing the guest list. I hung out as backup in case she needed any, plus the beer was good. Nice drunk fight, by the way, that was hilarious.”

“I cannot believe you! Nat, why didn't you tell me he was there? How long were you snooping around, Clint?”

“He had to fly out to New Mexico the next day, that's when Thor showed up.” With practiced ease she reconnects the wiring and locks his spare reactor into place. Whatever else he has to say about her, he can't deny she's good. The week after the battle she'd made sure she knew what to do if anything ever happened to it, along with any other major issues that could arise within the team, without any prompting from Fury or SHIELD. She may be scary as fuck, but she was definitely good.

“You want anything? Fancy dinner, new pair of shoes?”

That earns him a withering look. “Stark, I get paid more than enough to buy my own shoes.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“You could just say thank you, it's not that hard.”

“Fine,” he sighs dramatically, “thank you, oh great and terrifying assassin.” She smacks him in the head and stands.

Steve leans against the back of the couch, arms crossed and looking a little irritated. “I think you left a little bit out during the briefing.”

“What, that I was traipsing around his head and chatting about the coming apocalypse with his godly counterpart? Sorry, that stuff was on a need-to-know basis. Had to chat with him first. I've gotta admit, though, that could have gone better.”

“You think?”

“Well, in my defense it also could have gone a lot worse, especially if he'd decided to fight us. Let me tell you, he was definitely holding back during the battle, because that guy is lethal with a knife. I'm not kidding. Even Natasha would be afraid.” He climbs to his feet and winces at the ache in his chest.

“I was.”

_“You,_ the super-assassin, were afraid.”

Clint looks up from his phone, probably texting Fury an update or something. “Of course she was. So was I. Anyone who isn't afraid in a situation like that is an idiot who won't last twelve minutes in the field.”

“Okay, fine then, but you know what I mean.”

Thor walks back through the remnants of his window from where he'd been looking out over the city. “He may not fight in the ways of Asgard, but any who underestimate him ask for death.” He kicks some of the glass back toward the window from further in the room. “There were many who would force his hand into hólmgang, especially in recent years. He carried only a dagger each time, and touched not one of his allowed shields, but each of his opponents found their grave within the day.

“What-gong?” Clint tosses his cell onto the coffee table and sits on the arm of the sofa, re-tying the shoe that's loosened itself.

The god's expression turns a bit more serious. “On Asgard, there are some insults so powerful that the victim has but two choices: to live in absolute shame and be viewed as less than a slave, or to challenge the insulter to a duel. Should he win, and the foe either die or forfeit, then his honor remains intact and the other takes the shame onto himself, or else he himself dies or must accept his place and live as an outcast.”

“Damn. So essentially some guys called him names, and then he offed 'em? What they even say, anyway?”

Remembering, Thor's lip curls in disgust. “They dared call him argr, sansorðinn, hryssa, seiðskratti, seiðmaðr…”

All he can see is red eyes glowing in the forest, and the look in Loki's eyes when his brother advanced toward him speaking those words. What the hell do the Æsir even come up with that's so bad? He asks, and Thor looks confused as to how to translate it. Natasha steps in instead.

“Basically, they called him gay.”

…well then. That's not quite what he'd expected.

“That's not the entirety of what it means, but to an extent, yes.”

“Well, if you want to get more precise then it means that he practices women's magic and willingly bottoms, but the connotations of that in a viking or Asgardian context are a bit more extreme. Life-or-death extreme, like Thor said.”

So, does that mean that Loki thinks Thor thinks he's gay, or that he's actually gay and he's scared Thor will find out? Either way, Asgard's stupid, but whatever. “So essentially, Loki's a hell of a lot scarier than we think he is?”

“Aye.”

Clint sighs and drops his face into the cushion. “Fantastic. And Stark just pissed him off.”

“Hey! It's not my fault the guy's batshit!”

“The important question,” Steve cuts in before things get out of hand and turn into a cat fight, “is what do we do now that he's out? When we talked day before yesterday, we were under the assumption that we had a bit of time to think about it, but it looks like that time just disappeared.”

“If it is true that Ragnarök is coming, then there is very little we can do. He will not and cannot be stopped until the final war, and then it will be too late.”

Fuck. “Okay, well, things just got ten times more complicated. Thor, buddy? You and I need to have a little chat about Asgard, the apocalypse, and your not-so-little not-quite-brother. And the rest of you should grab a drink, 'cause when we get back you're going to need it.”

“Tony, I really don't think that getting the team drunk is the best idea, all things considered. Despite what you seem to think, planning tends to be more effective when you can see straight.”

He glances up at the supersoldier, an eyebrow raised. “Trust me, buddy. The shit I'm going to have to explain will go down a thousand times easier with a few shots, just because you can't get tipsy doesn't mean that you have to inflict the pain on everyone else. You think I'm joking but I'm one hundred percent serious when I say that the conversations I had with the horny reindeer last week were completely freaking insane and just as completely important.”

Oh, hey, back up a sec, is that why he chucked him out the window after the performance joke? Makes a little bit more sense if manliness is such a big deal to him. Compared to Thor, yeah, Loki's kind of the black sheep (haha get it? (shut up, his jokes are funny, deal with it)). He'll have to apologize for that next time.

No, wait, the bastard tore out his arc reactor.

No apology for him.

Asshole.

“Drinks or not, this shit's going to be crazy. Might want to speed-read the eddas in the meantime, because Ragnarök is not a thing we want to happen. At all.”


	10. Letting the Field Lay Fallow

“It's said that long ago, when the first ash tree still stood, that the oldest and wisest of the gods met at Her heart to speak with Her. They had seen the realms slow to a halt, and knew that if naught was done mankind would cease to thrive. After days of discussion amongst themselves, though, they had not one idea to share with Her and grew despondent. When night fell and they sat around the fire, losing hope and thinking to return home.

“That was when a man stepped forward. He was the youngest among them, barely out of boyhood and just a palace servant brought to tend to their horses. From his belt he untied a small bag filled with ash and poured it into the fire. They laughed and told him that naught would happen.

“After a few moments, a phoenix rose from the flames in burning glory. 'Light,' he said calmly, 'cannot exist without darkness, nor can love without apathy. All things must have their opposites to hold any meaning. There is naught to which this is more true than to life.'

“They asked him what he meant, confused to his point, and he continued. 'A farmer cannot sow the same field year after year, or the soil becomes barren and naught will grow. It must lie fallow for a time. So too does a farmer prune the orchards to maintain their health and increase their yield.' The bird came to perch on his outstretched arm, feathers still alight, and he looked out over the elders. 'Life cannot grow on without death. If we are to thrive, we must also die.'

“This idea they found disconcerting, but the more they pondered it the more they realized the truth to what the boy had said. The next morn they spoke with Her, and she agreed that the realms must fall if they were ever to rise. That is how the cycle of Ragnarök began, and why the gods accept its coming. We understand that our death brings life anew.”

Tony kicks a pebble and it clatters down the sidewalk. “So, what, you guys just let yourselves die? Seems kind'a anti-Asgard, if you know what I mean.”

“We accept our deaths with honor, knowing that they serve a greater purpose to Her. That is not to say we do not fight, only that we fight in the knowledge that we will not win.”

“Doesn't it scare you, though? The idea that in theory you'll die soon on a suicide mission?”

“A son of Odin fears nothing!”

He can't help but laugh when Thor does his little 'I am a great and mighty warrior' routine, complete with haughty expression and a voice to match. The demeanor falls, though.

“In truth, it does, but I will face it with dignity all the same.”

“But what if you didn't have to?”

“I must.” Bells clink as Thor holds the door to a convenience store open for him. “It cannot be stopped, She would not allow it, and even if by some chance one could manage it would only do the realms ill. Midgard views the end as something dark and final, but it's not. 'Tis just a new beginning.”

Why the hell are the Zebra Cakes at the bottom of the bargain bin? That's just cruel, letting them taunt him through the stupid wire basket but making them so hard to get to. If he can fight off Zola, though, he can sure as hell get to sugary heaven in plastic wrap.

“Easy for you to say, you get reincarnated. We don't. Much as I hate to admit it, we're apparently not that important in the really, _really_  big picture. Although for the record, in the slightly smaller really big picture I'm still top of the list.”

Thor turns back from the refrigerator case at the end of the aisle, a bottle in each hand. “It's more complicated than that, very much so. When it comes to gods and afterlives, there are more than just the Æsir, Helheim, and Valhalla. The same is true when it comes to the end of days. It would take weeks to explain, and I still don't understand a large part of how it all fits together. Loki would be able to tell you more than I, he always paid more attention to that sort of lesson.” He laughs. “I was probably planning an escape route for when our tutor's back was turned. Should I purchase cherry or vanilla?”

There are two boxes on top of his goal, and he can't quite reach them. Does this count as cruel and unusual punishment? It should. “Vanilla, it's definitely a vanilla day. I thought you were supposed to be the good prince!”

He puts the cherry Coke back and walks over. “Not causing undue amounts of trouble for the sake of it does in no way mean that I enjoyed studying texts so old that half the pages had disintegrated. Believe me when I say that I still got reprimanded for my fair share of poor behaviour. In some respects I wish I had listened to the teachings more, but not so much that I will actually sit down and reread them. I can only handle so much boredom before I die from that instead of Ragnarök. Do you need aid?”

“What? No! I am perfectly capable of getting my own snacks!”

Thor leans against the shelves and watches him struggle, clearly amused. Asshole.

“Godly-Loki seems to think this thing's gone on long enough, and that we can stop it.”

“I won't stand in your way, but when the time comes I will fight as I am meant to. I admire your determination, though, humankind seems born with an amount that surpasses most of the other races.”

“Are you talking about stopping Ragnarök, or me reaching the damn box?” Okay, Thor's smirk is just plain mean. Whatever god made him a half-inch too short for this is just asking for a kick in the ass when he finds them. “Will you help information-wise, at least?”

“Of course.”

_HA! TAKE THAT, WORLD! THE ZEBRA CAKES ARE HIS!_

“Okay, so, how powerful _is_ Loki, exactly? Like I said, I'm pretty sure he was holding back on us last time.” He shoves the rest of the boxes back in place and _really?_ There's another box of Zebra Cakes. On top. Right there, right on top. “You know what? Never mind. I'm going to go help burn the world down as payback, because it obviously hates me.”

Thor laughs, with or at him he's not sure, although he's guessing a bit of both. After a beat he sobers. “I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know? You're his brother, I thought you guys fought together all the time.”

“We did,” he shakes his head, “but he hasn't fought me all-out in centuries. When we were younger he'd use everything he knew when we sparred, but it got to the point where he could kill me by mistake if he wasn't careful and restricted his spell use. I don't know just how much stronger he's grown, only that it has been significantly. The number of mages I've spoken to is few, as the art is dying out for the most part, but the rumor amongst them is that he is the most powerful in the realm. Possibly more realms than just Asgard.”

Fuck. “Okay, yeah, that wasn't reassuring at all.”

“He's always had a talent for it. Much as we teased, it's obvious that for him it is as natural as breathing, and you would do well to fear him. As I said earlier, underestimating Loki is suicide.”

“Fantastic. Any weaknesses? Don't give me that look, I'm not planning to kill him if not absolutely necessary, but if an all-powerful sorcerer is coming at me I'd like to be able to defend myself.” He tosses a twenty at the cashier and tells her to keep the change as a tip. Carrying bills less than that is too much paper. When they step outside it's stopped drizzling, which is nice, but the sky is still dreary as ever.

Thor unscrews the cap on his soda only to have it fizz over. He makes a face and replaces the lid, then shakes the excess foam off his hand. “Water dampens certain forms of his magic slightly, as do fog and smoke, as they increase the complexity of its route. He adapts quickly, though, so don't rely on it. If you can manage to gag him or bind his hands then that will slow him as well, but his voice and gestures only serve to increase the ease of spell-casting and are not necessary. That will also cause him to grow increasingly irritated, though, which will likely end poorly for you. Another way to incense him is to call him a sorcerer, as a warning, as sorcery and magecraft are two very different things and he looks down on those only able to use a 'diluted form of magic,' as he calls it.”

“So it's like if someone called me a technician? Not that I have anything against technicians or anything, but I'm kind of a genius here.”

“I'm unsure as to the equivalency, but I would assume.”

“Gotcha. Good to know.”

“You should also know,” the bottle opens without issue this time and he takes a swig, “that teleportation is incredibly taxing and he hardly ever uses it if there's another option.”

“So you mean he's hiding in a hole somewhere taking a nap now?”

Thor just raises an eyebrow. “No, I mean that he only cloaked himself from sight, and probably left through the same window he broke.”

 _”What?”_ He tears the box open with a little more force than necessary. “You mean that I could have smacked the bastard, but he was probably just standing in the corner watching me freak out?”

“Likely.”

“And you just now thought to tell me this? Instead of trying to grab him?” He debates whether Thor's lost his right to a cake but decides he's feeling merciful (and doesn't want to carry the box the whole time), so he tosses them to him.

He pulls out a pack and hands them back. Dammit. So much for that plan.

“He's grown too talented at walking silently, I couldn't track him. I did try.”

They walk in companionable quiet for a time, enjoying having food after the tiring fight earlier that day. He finds a good-sized rock and kicks it at Thor, and it quickly turns into a mini soccer game as each tries to kick it past each other.

“That was cheating!” Thor complains around a mouthful of food.

“Um, nope, pretty sure that was just you sucking.”

“Cheating is dishonorable. You have dishonored your family name.”

Tony laughs. “I'm pretty sure you're just a sore loser.”

“That cannot be true, as your cheating makes me the winner.”

“Oh, stop being such a girl-” he shoots Thor a look, “and if you challenge me to a hold-a-gun or whatever you call the death match thing because I said you're a girl, I'll throw a zebra cake at your head.”

“Hólmgang, and no. It would be in ill taste to fight a babe.”

“What did you just call me?”

“A weanling.”

“Say that to my face, I dare you!”

He smirks. “Tony Stark, tot of iron.”

In what is probably not the most dignified response in his life, he does actually throw the rest of his cake at the god's face and hits him between the eyes. Thor wipes the frosting away and laughs.

“I believe you just proved my point, so you have my thanks for that.”

“Asshole.”

“Nursling.”

Tony pouts, unwrapping another cake, and they fall back to silence.

“In regards to magic,” Thor says after a while, “it does take effort. The stronger the spell, the more exhausting it will be. If you fight my brother, you would do well to keep that in mind. He will prefer to use smaller, more direct attacks as opposed to larger generalized ones when possible.”

“Duly noted. Question, though?”

Thor nods for him to continue.

“Where do you stand in regards to Loki right now? I know you're not on good terms, but you still call him brother so how much are you still on his side?”

“I am not entirely sure,” he says with a sigh. “If this is the time he chooses to bring down Ragnarök then I will fight him as I'm meant to, and I will always fight for this realm, but I do care for him still. I'll provide information to you for your protection, but I will not actively aid either of you in a battle unless I have dire cause to. Is that acceptable?”

He hands the last pack to Thor and tosses the box in a trash can they pass. “Yeah, guess so. I mean, obviously I'd rather you fight with us because admittedly you're kind of a badass, but I think I get it. I mean, if Pepper suddenly turned evil I'd probably feel pretty similarly. Like, tell you how to not get killed, but I don't think I'd be able to fight her very well.”

“I thank you for your understanding in the matter. Not all of your team agrees.”

“Well, I mean, I see their side too, but you're kind of the one stuck in the middle of everything. I'm going to assume it sucks.”

“It is trying,” Thor agrees. After a few seconds he laughs. “I must admit, though, that was the most confused and stunned I have seen Loki in a long time. The rest of the Avengers as well. Your actions were most unexpected.”

“Yeah, well, don't mess with my beauty sleep or things get ugly. I don't take _nobody's_ shit. Plus, I didn't think the little stare-off was going anywhere and I get bored. Figured I should cut off the dramatic monologue off before it started.”

The door to the diner they just passed flies open and a seven- or eight-year-old boy comes running out.

“Thor! Thor! Thor!”

“Hey, what about Iron Man?”

The kid looks up at him seriously. “Iron Man doesn't have a cape.”

He glances over at Thor, who's trying in vain to keep from laughing. “You ever seen the Incredibles?”

A nod.

“Remember what that lady with the huge glasses said about capes? How they're dangerous and good superheroes don't wear them?”

Thor looks unimpressed. “I have viewed that film as well, but their logic implies that the cape is not removable. Should there be too strong a force on mine, it will pull off instead of kill me. Humans should really spend more than five minutes thinking about such things.”

“Ha!” The boy crosses his arms with a triumphant smile. “Thor has a cool cape. Thor, are you really from another planet? Jackson says that's impossible, because spaceships can't go that far, but the TV says that you are.”

“I am indeed, but I don't use a ship to get here. Heimdall opens a rainbow bridge for me.”

His eyes widen. “Whoa.”

Thor smirks at Tony, who sticks his tongue out in reply.

“So, you're gonna protect us right? Like, in case any more monsters come back and try to blow it up, you'll save the world.”

He nods. “I will fight the monsters.”

That seems to appease him, and he smiles. “Good.” A woman calls, probably his mother, and he runs off with a wave.

“Nice wording.”

Thor sighs. “Yeah.”

“Still gonna let Ragnarök happen?”

“I have to. If one child could sway a honorable warrior's mind from battle then realms would fall to evil in days.”

Tony kicks a rock down the sidewalk and it falls off the curb with a splash into a puddle. After a pause, he looks up.

“Is that all you are? Just a warrior?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Burn the Forest has ended up on a bit of a hiatus—I was originally working on it side-by-side with Half-Step, but writer's block hit on this one and the exact opposite happened with the other. This definitely isn't abandoned, by any means, but while Half-Step's getting daily or every-other day updates, I'm leaving it on a break so that it doesn't just end up sounding forced. Sorry for the wait, but thanks for reading!


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